For the past 2 weeks on Mondays and Wednesdays, Maggie has been taking swimming lessons. She is a Beginner, Level 1, as she has only limited experience in a pool; this is very much an "intro to water"-type class. She has a healthy fear of the water but I can see that after just 120 minutes of class time she is becoming so much more comfortable paddling around with her teacher, chasing after little rubber duckies in the water. The class size is very small- they only allow 4 students per teacher- and there is only one other little girl in her class. Tonight I took her for a quick bathroom break near the end of class when they usually practice jumping into the pool. This is not her favorite part of the class and when it is her turn she usually sits down on the edge of the pool and scoots her bottom into the water where Ms. Deborah, her teacher, is waiting for her. She told me several times on the way to the locker room: "No way am I jumping into the pool, Mom. No way. I can't do that. I don't want to go under water." Well we get back to the pool and Ms. Deborah asks her if she was ready to jump in... Maggie walked over and jumped right in! Straight into the water, the whole way under and everything. I think she really surprised herself- she sprang back up and Ms. D helped her paddle back to the side of the pool and that was it. She did it! I was watching her eyes to see her reaction and she didn't look scared at all... it happened quite unexpectedly and she didn't really know how to react. I think once she realized what had happened though she was very pleased. Brian was able to be at class with us tonight, so we all got to see it. We are so proud of her!
This class has been great for Lydia to watch. She can start classes once she turns 3, so I am planning to enroll her later this summer. She is so interested in watching Maggie swim around so I think she will do just fine once it's her turn. And we plan to just keep re-enrolling Maggie each session to help build her skills.
