Swimming Lessons (Nina Day 16)

A few weeks ago my mom convinced me to sign Kayla up for some private swimming lessons. I thought that sounded fine, just Matthew, Corrina, and Kayla (with me) in my moms pool. Well a few days before the lessons start I found out they arent in my moms pool they are in a someone's pool down the street. Apparently you have to sign up to be a host even if its just your family. So needless to say I wasnt too thrilled about that but I felt that it was important enough for her to go that I sucked it up and we went.

My main goals for Kayla were #1 Not to be afraid of the water the way I am and #2 to learn something that would help her when she learns to swim. I didnt think at all that she was going to learn to swim in the 8 lessons she would be getting.

Our first day started off kinda rough, the instructor was a few minutes late and then we had to sign paper work (oops they think Im Kayla's guardian-Nina guardian same thing right?). So we ended up only getting about 2o minutes of water time. That actually worked out okay, she had the other kids doing kick boards and swimming back and forth since they all knew 'kinda' how to swim.

Kayla learned how to hold on to my shoulders and kick across the pool with me helping her. She also learned how to 'get the side'. This involves us sitting her on the edge and then kinda pulling her into the pull and telling her that 'when we fall in the pool we get the side'. After she holds on to the side we sing 'itsy bitsy spider' and walk her hands until she can stand on the step.

In my opinion the day was a success because there were no tears, she happily played in the water and let us do as we wanted with her. One of the times we 'got the side' we even dunked her so that she would learn to close her mouth when she goes under, and other than coming up rubbing her eyes to get the water off her face she had no reaction. Better than me! LOL I come up sputtering every time.