Swim Lessons

NonaJane sticking to Mema

My mom has been taking water aerobics from an intense instructor up by Weatherby Lake. She has been encouraging me for over a year to sign Jack and Nona up with her for private swim lessons. Swearing to me that she is able to teach babies and toddlers not only survival skills, but how to swim.  Well I finally broke down and decided to call Mandy.  We headed up for three weeks in a row of hour long sessions.  Jack was his usual over-achieving and super eager self. He jumped right in and really listened to the instructions Mandy would give.  On the first day she already had him floating on his back, diving down for rings, and being able to swim forward with his face in the water about 5-10 feet.  By his third lesson, he could jump in from the side, push off the bottom and swim forward about 15 feet!  He floated on his back for over 10 seconds, and is starting to work on stringing the skills together.  Mandy's biggest fear with Jack is that he is now over-confident and will require close supervision around the water.

NonaJane sneaking around and throwing all the water toys in 

NonaJane on the other hand… well she decided to do a 180 on us.  Our daughter who has always enjoyed the water with us decided that she did NOT like this pool.  She would taunt us and stick her toes in the water saying "wet!" but if we dared to pry her from the edge she would only cling to us like an octopus ( I imagine they would be very clingy).  She would then proceed to yell "OUT!" and if that didn't work she would resort to "OWIE!" which got a great reaction from the very elderly aerobic class that was in the pool with us. The sweet ladies would one by one come over and say "oh, you poor thing." or "Do you like the water?"  to which NonaJane would only reply "NO" (add extreme emphasis and exaggeration on the "N" sound and a quick snappy sassy ending on the "O").  One extra-fragile looking woman told Nona "your so cute, would you like to go home with me?" to which you can only imagine the "NnnnnO!" that she got from Nona.  So three weeks in a row, NonaJane refused to participate (other than to throw rings and every other object into the pool and giggle when it sank).  Thus Jack got the full hour to himself and seemed to really thrive!
I have no doubt that when summer hits Nona will love the pool. She will love the lake, the boat, and puddles of water. She dives under the bath water at home, blows bubbles, and splashes with delight.  She has no fear of the water, or swimming, or getting wet.  Mandy was sweet and said that is was probably the stranger anxiety, mixed with a foreign place, mixed with a large pool that looked like an ocean.  I will agree with her and say that surely, my sweet beautiful, and confident little girl was not just being defiant :) no no.  Not Nona. My children are much too perfect for that.

Jack learning to back float on day one