Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Swimming Lessons - Day 13

Austin has pulled way ahead of his siblings. The video shows how he can go from floating on his back to getting the stairs after flipping over on his tummy.

There's a funny story about today, however. He is getting a wee bit brave. When Tanya's daughter arrived she was instructed by her mom to get into the empty pool. She said that Austin could get in with her. He immediately got out of the pool was in and went to the second pool. They are placed less than 5 feet apart.

I was standing on the decking between both pools holding Lauren and watching John in one pool and Austin in the other. Tanya's daughter was swimming around and Austin was watching her with his little pre-school crush face on. She got to the opposite end of the pool from the stairs (and Austin) and says, "Austin...come get me. One, two, three, GO!"

There was no way that my little one that cried because he didn't want to swim a mere 5 days ago would try to leave the stairs. Wrong! Off he went. Holy cow! I waited a few seconds to see how he would maneuver this. He got a couple of feet out and realized he wasn't going to make it. He got himself turned around and headed back to the stairs.

During the whole maneuvering I stayed calm and said, "Um, Tanya. He's trying to swim by himself over here." She paused only a second and sent her trainee (Robin) over after him. I had put Lauren down and leaned over the pull to give him a hand target. He was swimming with all of his little might. Just as he reached my hand Robin got in and we both had hold of him.

He smiled and sat down on the stairs. I think he was proud of himself, but didn't quite know how I would react. We had the talk about how he wasn't quite ready to go solo without an adult in the pool. He stuck like glue to the stairs until it was time to leave. Confidence still intact, but a little more careful (I hope).

The Triplets

They are another story. We made some progress today, but Tanya thinks that John and Lauren are such lightweights (long and lean) that they are going to have a hard time with the swim. They keep trying to roll over and float. She's concentrating on their floating and we're going to have to keep working on their kicks for the swim part. The crying is a little less, but I don't expect that to be completely gone by the time we're done. I hope they prove me wrong.

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3 comments:

2Forgetful said...

I'm sitting here with my jaw on the floor. AWESOME job Austin!

Anonymous said...

wow Austin is doing great

Anonymous said...

We just watched the video and you are doing a great job!!!