If June was the month of travels then July was definitely the month of swimming! Ashlyn had been begging to take swim lessons for months. But I kept telling her we had to wait for summer to take swim lessons. Patience is not one of Ashlyn's strong points so we had many conversations about the matter.
On her first day of lessons she was the only child to show up so she had the instructor ( a college girl) all to herself. She managed to scare that poor girl silly by going limp and rolling her eyes around. The girl came and got me and said I think there is something wrong with her. Upon further investigation I decided that Ashlyn did not want to put her face in the water and was getting tired. Naturally that required a performance on her part. I mean its not like she could just say I'm tired or anything like that! She then told me she did not want to take lessons anymore. I told her she would be finishing the course. Things improved greatly after that first dramatic day.
Towards the end of the course I asked the instructor which level I should put her in for a second round of lessons. She said, "she's swimming but she still doesn't really want to put her face in the water. Just put her in this level again." After our conversation I started thinking about how she hates to have water in her eyes. She keeps a towel by the side of the tub so she can dry her eyes. I bought her a pair of swim goggles and from that point on she was like an underwater fish! It also helped that the instructor for the second course was a boy. Ashlyn was much more concerned with impressing him!
My mermaid girl.
Gavin started out in the minnow course and then moved up to the fish level for the second course. I had tried to talk Whitney into taking lessons complete with a pep talk about the joys of getting a life guard job as a teen someday. Whitney was uninspired but Gavin was extra motivated to do well as a result.
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