Swimming

Summer is pretty much in full swing here, so we've been going to the pool a couple times a week and enjoying lots of time swimming with friends.  Thankfully, Abby has really improved in her swimming over the last couple of weeks, and now she can pretty much get around the whole pool.  She's great at floating on her back, too, which is great for when she needs to rest.  I still have to keep a close eye on her but she is doing well.

Ellie, however, is not quite 3 yet so she didn't really have any swimming skills at all.  Last summer I had heard about someone in a neighboring ward (church congregation) who teaches swimming lessons, but it was pretty expensive and we still felt that Ellie was too young to benefit much (and Abby was too old to spend that kind of money on a skill we could teach her).

In late March I heard again that this swimming teacher was starting to open up swimming lesson spots for the summer, and she would be filling up fast.  Ellie is at an age that she will want to be a little more active in the water.  She is also at an age where she will listen to someone else better than she would listen to me or Garrett (not to mention the fact that I have no idea how to teach swimming to someone so young!).  Or, maybe it's not the age as much as her stubborn personality. :)

So, we bit the bullet and signed Ellie up for lessons.  It seemed expensive at first but basically it came down to the fact that if something ever did happen to her in the pool, and she hadn't taken lessons, we would have never forgiven ourselves for skipping the opportunity.  We will be spending so much time at the pool this summer, I didn't want to take my chances. It's especially hard because when we do go to the pool, there are often about 10 of my friends there and about 25 other kids so it's really hard to keep track of everyone. (I literally saved a 3-year-old's life a few weeks ago when no one was paying attention to him in the pool.  I have no idea how long he'd been under the water before I saw him but he is fine now.  It really scared me though.)  My biggest worry with lessons was that at the end, Ellie would be ALL OVER the pool and I would have to chase her around all summer.  Thankfully, that hasn't been the case and she maintained a healthy fear of the water.  She still prefers to just hang out on the stairs and play with toys and other friends.

Anyway, Ellie's lessons concluded yesterday (10 lessons, every week day for 2 weeks) and I'm pretty happy with her progress.  She is definitely doing things that I never could have taught her, and during her last lesson I was in the pool too so that her teacher could show me how to keep practicing with her.  It was also nice that the lessons were right at our neighborhood pool, less than half a mile from our house.

This first video is Ellie "saving herself".  If she ever fell into the pool, she would turn around and go to the wall (that's the hope, anyway!).  You'll notice (at the end) that Ellie is wearing little flippers.  Ellie is so tiny that she has a hard time swimming very far.  Her teacher used the flippers (sparingly) so that Ellie could get a sense of how to swim and actually get somewhere fast.  It also helped her with her "form" while swimming (keeping her feet up near the top as she kicked, rather than having her feet just sink).


Another important skill she learned was how to float on her back to get a breath.  She really doesn't like floating much so we'll really have to work on that one!


We are so proud of Ellie and her progress over the last two weeks!  Lauren was a great instructor and we will miss seeing her every day.  Thanks, Lauren!!