Swimming!

We have been super busy this summer!  The kids have been taking all sorts of lessons!  Since my mom has a swimming pool at her house and we are currently living with her, we were nervous about none of them knowing how to swim.  So my mom bought all 3 kids swim lessons at the local Aqua Tots school in Ballantyne.  It started out ROUGH, but it has definitely gotten better!  We enrolled Kaitlyn and Brayden both in a 2 week fast track course that is 8 lessons over the course of 2 weeks to help them learn to swim quicker.  For Allie, they only offered the mommy and me once a week class for a month.  Allie started her lesson first and screamed the entire 30 minute lesson.  I felt bad for the other kids in the class having to listen to that the whole time.  Fortunately she has improved tremendously!  Allie LOVES the water now and is crazy!  She goes under water all the time and laughs and goes crazy!  She is still not quite big enough for the floaties, but too big for the baby floats so it is hard always having to hold her in the water and deal with watching the other kids, so I don't venture into the pool alone very often with them.  Brayden's has been a very slow progression.  At the start of the summer and swim lessons he was still terrified of putting his face in the water.  He still is, but will do it now.  We wasted about 2-3 lessons of him not wanting to do anything with the teacher and crying and freaking out if they tried to make him float on his back.  Justin and I tried to work with him at home and that was a disaster as well.  Finally my mom took him in alone and scared him into doing everything.  She said we are all "too soft" and were banned from the pool! ha!  In only about 30 minutes she had him floating on his back, jumping into the pool to her and putting his face into the water by himself!  Apparently she had to use some threats!  He still won't do all of that for his swim teacher, but at least I know now that he can!   Here is a video of him clutching onto the teacher for dear life as she tries to make him cooperate.

Then here is the same afternoon with my mom!

Such a vast improvement!  Yay Brayden!  He is still very scared of the water and doesn't like it, but at least he is getting better.  Kaitlyn on the other hand has excelled!  She started out in the beginner level class, but after only 3 lessons, they graduated her to the higher level and she is now swimming "freestyle" around the pool!  She is doing great!