First swim lesson with Monica was tricky. Would you expect anything else? The little man was adamant that he didn't want to go swimming. So I had to carry his 38lb bulk into the school, whilst trying to convince him that we were just going to meet Monica and play with toys. He was short on trust.
Once at the pool-side he was not happy with the setup at all. It was all looking like I was going to relive yesterday's tantrum in Target - they viciously position $129 talking Buzz Lightyears at toddler height.... need I saw anymore?
Monica persuaded me to sit on the side and dip my feet in... more damp shorts! Eventually, he put his feet in too, started playing and then Monica even coaxed him to practice kicking. On exiting the pool I think he was actually quite cocky.
Perhaps there's still a glimmer of hope we'll release his inner Sea Monster!
Yay, Mr. Toddler!
ReplyDeleteI don't have kids - that's probably a good thing, considering that the time I raised a cat, she totally pwned me. But I can relate to Mr. Toddler, since I was also a champion screamer who had problems with swim lessons. Dunno if any of this applies to or can help him, but here's some stuff I learned later on that I wish I could have explained to the adults at the time (Though I think I was a bit older than Mr. Toddler.)
* I hated putting my face in the water, for a whole mess of reasons. Really, you only have to inhale or swallow water once or twice to mentally declare War on Pools if you're a little screamy kid like I was. But there were also some water-eyes-sinuses-nose-mouth flow engineering issues which I have since solved, at least in part, by adopting those advanced technological innovations: swim caps and goggles. Essentially, if a swimming pool seems to function as a giant, chlorinated Neti pot, a small, screamy child may have trouble seeing the larger picture. Decongestants and tissues still come in handy though. (And to this day, I hate Neti pots.) :-)
* I have what is now known as exercise-induced asthma, but in those days it was just called, "Come on you wimp." Now that I know, the doc gave me an inhaler to use before exercise. That helps, but I also find temperature a big factor. Warm water/air: good. Cool water/air: bad. I usually do much better in indoor pools, unless it's an old-skool badly ventilated stinker. The nice thing is, once you get past the initial hurdle and you're swimming a lot, the more you can do without the inhaler or in less conducive temperatures.
* That said, the first way I eventually learned to swim as a kid was to do breast stroke with my head completely out of the water. Since what I really hated was putting my face in the water, I was much more amenable to that than freestyle, which I learned later. Dunno if that might apply to Mr. Toddler, but it was the thing that finally got me swimming.
Wish I'd gotten that whole goggles/cap/inhaler thing worked out as a kid, because though I eventually learned freestyle, I never learned to do it particularly well. Been swimming a lot for the past several months, and suspect I'm on the verge of becoming the Michael Phelps of bad swimming technique. So... in the hopes of transforming into a graceful swan, I'm going to take swimming lessons! Took some time to arrange - was finally supposed to start today, but alas, a pulled neck muscle delays it til next week. (I'm not wimping out - I swear.)
But that's ok. Should give me time to hire a three-year-old to blog about my screaming. With my larger lung capacity, bet I'll be the loudest kid in the whole pool...
Best of luck to Mr. Toddler. Kick on...