Swimming

The kids are all taking swim lessons at our local pool this summer -- something we try to do every summer.  We can't always make it to all of the sessions, but we make it to most of them.  We've done some off-season lessons too at the Y, but swimming in the winter is really not all that much fun.  I had hoped we'd be ready for the swim team by now, but neither of the girls can swim a full lap yet.  We know a lot of families on the team and while I know it would be very time consuming, I also think it would be a great community activity to be a part of.  (Not that I was that big of a fan of it when I was a kid...).  Things seem to be a little different now than when I was a kid though.  Try outs for our local team are held in the late winter and are actually competitive.  Meaning the girls wouldn't make it on the team if they can't swim a lap.  When I was a kid, you just signed up and got hands on learning in practice every morning.  It didn't matter if the team was super big, everyone got to swim in the meets -- some age groups had LOTS of heats, others didn't have so many.  Swimmers were ranked by time and swam against other kids who were comparable.  I worry that by the time the girls are ready to try out for the team, it's going to be too competitive (they have a cap on the number of kids that can be in each age group).  We'll see how things progress I guess.
   
This is Teddy's first year of lessons and I was hoping that he would be comfortable doing the first class level that does not require an adult to be with him.  And we tried.  For three days.  And then we moved down to the mommy-and-me class.  He's happy to do most things that are asked of him in that class, but he will only do them with me and not the teacher.  He probably won't move up to the next level until next year.  Because I've had to be in the water with Teddy (or coaxing him to participate in his class) I haven't gotten any pictures of any of them at lessons.  We have been to the pool for fun (either our local pool or my parent's neighborhood pool) several times though and everyone has enjoyed that.  Teddy is slowly getting more confident and the girls have a great time.  It's especially fun when they have their cousins to play with.

Happy to play in the baby pool