Monday, May 21, 2007

Swimming Lessons


We live in Georgia where a good majority of subdivisions have pools. Ours is a nice, small pool, but we don't have a life guard. Trying to envision taking 4 kids ages 3 and under to the pool seemed daunting and not very safe.

Austin talks about going swimming all of the time. We decided to go full force and make sure they all learned a skill set that could save their lives if, heaven forbid, one of them slipped out of site and landed into the pool. You know how quickly that can happen.

We chose Infant Swim Resource. Someone on the triplet group I belong to sent a recommendation for these folks. They really know what they are doing. We have a master certified trainer 30 minutes from us and decided that this would be our vacation. It takes a 5-day per week commitment for 4-6 weeks. Lots of people think I'm crazy, but other moms that have put their kids through this say that their little ones are like fish by the end of the lessons. And I can't think of anywhere that I'd wish to go with a 3 year old and three almost two year olds for vacation, can you?

Today was our first day and it was really awesome. There was lots of crying (times 4 kids), but they did really well. I expected a lot of crying and it was no where near what I had planned for. Tanya, our instructor, said that the triplets were naturals. All three of them were trying to turn in the water to get their face up. She said that is not a common thing and it will make some of the skills easier to teach.

Pretty neat stuff. Austin, on the other hand, had a little more difficulty due to his age. The little ones didn't really know enough to be as scared as he was. He was a real trooper though. He cried through most of it, but he's ready to go back tomorrow. When he got in the van, he patted Lauren on the arm and said, "Good swimmin' Larnen!" It was precious.

They swim every day for 4-6 weeks, so I plan on using blog posts to journal their progress. At some point Clif's sister is going to bring her underwater camera and get some shots of them in the water. Tanya also indicated that in a couple of weeks, they'd all be in together which would make them more comfortable. By the end of the lessons, they'll be trained to sit on the steps and swim out to me and back to the steps one at a time.

And for the swimming Pièce de résistance...they are still napping. I put them down at 1pm and it's 4pm. We haven't heard a peep.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Austin,
Keep up the encouraging words to your siblings. YOU are definitely precious.
Love, Nana

Anonymous said...

I think youre wise not crazy
ohhhh bless Austin what an awesome big brother he is
and wow what an awesome sleep they are having you wont want the 4-6 weeks to end LOL :)

2Forgetful said...

I'm looking forward to following their progress. Perhaps this will be our summer activity as well.

Anonymous said...

You go, girl - teach them all to swim so we can come hang out with you at the pool and A can babysit, not us : )