Swimming lessons how do I love thee, let me count the ways. I have a thing for pools as I have mentioned many times before. I especially love the memories I have as a junior high girl going to the Northern university pool early in the morning with all of my track friends for our swim practices. We did this once a week, doing laps, and playing water polo. It was a different kind of hard and wore me out each week. But, I also loved it. I loved the echo in the aquatics area, the splashing, the sound of voices over the water, the smell of chlorine, the way my chest burned from the exercise and most importantly being with my friends. I am a big fan of organized sports. I love to exercise and I love to share that with my kids. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did as a kid.
We first started going to this particular pool around the time we moved into the Altessa apartments. It was shortly after the divorce was finalized and we were all just emotionally spent. I wanted to find a way to have fun with my boys. I wanted them to be active and have good memories to help soften the bad. Having a little more control over what we did and our schedule was very liberating for me. It was nice to feel peace and enjoy happy evenings with my boys. We so needed some peace. I am grateful for this pool for helping us at such a hard time in our lives. Over the last few years we have come back from time to time and love it still. I miss being here with Spencer as my baby though. I miss that one on one time we enjoyed for so long. I need to find ways to connect with my children individually.
With my boys heading to Utah for a week each year to spend time with their grandparents I have felt a need to be sure my boys can swim well. I realize Grandpa is a fabulous swimmer and swim instructor and the boys have learned so much from him. I also realize they are more than safe in the care of their grandparents. I am also just a mom, who wants to be sure that independent of anyone else my boys have the skills they need to be safe and to know all the strokes of swimming. They have both taken swimming lessons before and can swim. I just wanted them to have a chance to learn more in depth things. I liked what this program had to offer and the rest is history. Spencer has learned about different methods of floating, jumping into the pool, safety and the basics of the American crawl in level 2.
More than anything though he has loved splashing around with the other kids. He really likes his teacher too. He told me today that he was so glad that he was in a group class instead of a private one. I agree, the group class is a lot of fun.
Today when they lined up and practiced jumping in the pool over and over I could tell Spencer was working really hard on his technique. He is an excellent student--very attentive and eager to do what he's told--just as precisely as he can.
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