Swimming Lessons: Part I...

Today, Alexander had his first swimming "lessons". Technically, they're not swimming lessons but a "Mom & Me" class that allows us free time in the pool to allow him to get acclimated to the pool/water. Thank goodness we tried this first.

In the car, he was very excited to go to the big kids pool and swim with the big kids. I even asked where we were going and he said 'svim'. He was fine getting out of the car and into the building. However, the minute we walked into the locker room and the door shut he PANICKED! His whole body started shaking and he was crying so hard. The poor little guy was genuinely scared. He kept saying "home" but when I asked if he wanted to see the pool he said yes.

I put my bag down which gave him another crying attack, and took him to see the pool so he knew what was there. He stopped crying for a few moments but then started crying again, hard. I took him back to our locker and he kept saying home. I changed his diaper and put on his swim diaper and even though he was crying & scared, he let me change him without a fuss.

I was torn - do we stick it out or do I not put him through this torture and just take him home!? I figured I'd wait to see how he was when more kids arrived since we were first. Maybe seeing other kids would make him relaxed...a little girl, Allison, showed up and he stopped crying at first but then he started right back up. He saw Allison & her Mommy go out to the pool and he pointed to follow. So I took him back out and he was fine. Then he saw a man with hair just like Dr. M and he PANICKED again. I took him back into the locker room and tried to calm him down. I got undressed and figured we'd see how he was when the kids got in the water. He didn't want me to put him down so getting undressed holding on was interesting.

We walked out with our swimcaps & towel and I thought for sure that he was a goner if I had to put the swimcap on him. Thankfully only one other Mom & kid had a swimcap on so I didn't even attempt it. All the kids got into the water first and although he was very interested, he would continue to cry and then stop and cry again saying "home".

Finally, I walked down the stairs holding him and he was not happy. I took another step so his feet were in and he was fine, preoccupied by other kids. He would cry again and I would try to preoccupy him. I started to walk around in the pool and he pointed to the stairs saying 'out'. At this point, I thought that I'd let the poor kid go home since it had now been almost 20 minutes of him freaking out.

We walked up the stairs, and he stood at the top. So I held his hand ready to go and he pointed back to the stairs! What?! So I go in backwards and he walks down the stairs right after me. He clings on but let's me walk a bit but then wants to leave again. We did the stairs thing about 7-8 times but it seemed to work. It allowed him to get comfortable. Finally at 11:15, I saw him crack the first smile. (I looked at the clock specifically to see how long it took for him to relax). So for the last 15 minutes, he had a ball!

We did the stairs a couple more times, he held onto the ledge and kicked, and then the lifeguard brought out a baby slide and he went down the slide 4 times and splashed into the pool as I was at the bottom catching him. He even stood on the edge and jumped in so that I would catch him. At one point, he went on his back for a bit to let me have him float. He held onto a kickboard and did some kicking around the pool. The last 15 minutes were so much fun! However, my stomach was still in knots waiting for him to freak out again.

When free time was over, we walked up the stairs and he was Mr. Personality waving to everyone, saying goodbye 'pooltime'. So we'll see how next week goes...hopefully a bit better. Here are two pics that we took after swimtime when he was in a much better mood and actually let me put him down.