Like a 'Pish'

This summer, we felt like Alice needed to start swimming lessons. We don't do to much in the water. We have a small pool and she has her play pool, but we have never been in a large pool with her. I'm not a huge water fan so this is probably my fault. Whatever. Now that she's older, we felt like it would be a good time for some water safety.

The city offers swimming lessons so we signed her up for 2 classes.

She took the Tadpole class in June. This is a class for Preschoolers which focuses on introduction to the water, water basics, and beginning swimming. The class was taught by Mr. McKaid who had to be at least 16 years old because he drove himself to the class. A grandmother eventually asked and it turns out he was 19. Which is basically 16, because I'm old.

He handled our kids so well! She was in class with 2 other kids, a little boy and a little girl. They both had experience with water and spent some time being a little bit more rambunctious than our girl who was more focused on not getting her face wet. Bless her.

He was wonderfully patient and would ask, "Alice, do you want to jump into the pool?" Our girl, "NOPE!" Every. Time. She mastered the art of being obediently non-compliant. She would very obediently stand in line like a well-behaved child. And when it was her turn, she would say "no, thank you" and go back to the end of the line. Yeesh.

She did EVERYTHING in her power to NOT get her head wet. I can't blame her. I LOATHE water in my face.

At the end of the week, Mr. McKaid met with all the parents to talk about how their kids were doing. He said that other than her desire to not get her face near the water, she was actually doing pretty good! He recommended we work on it before her next lesson because it is something she can outgrow. I didn't think it was a good time to mention that I'm 36 and I avoid water in my face at all costs. 

In July, she started the Seahorse class which is more about swimming and less about "this is water". We arrive on the first day and the teacher doesn't have a key to the pool - sign #1 this isn't going to go well. Sign #2 was that that class had 10 kids, all between the ages of 4-6 and one teacher. It was TOTAL pandemonium. After day 1, 2 kids dropped out which brought the number to 8, which is still way too many for one teacher. Especially this teacher who I'm pretty sure has never taught a class before. 

The moms for class 1 all sat in one spot out of the way. However, the moms for class 2 stood pool side and hovered. This was the view for the first few days. 

On day 1, there was a little boy who DID NOT want to go anywhere near the water. So the mom just got in with him. When that didn't work, she took him over to the shallow part of the pool and dunked his head. This caused him to cry uncontrollably, obviously. And all of us moms were using all of our self control to keep our jaws and our eyebrows in line. The little boy who apparently loves the water every other day of the week, never took to the water this week. Nope. Not happening.

This class was UTTER chaos. The teacher never gained control or trust of the kids. They never listened to a thing she said. Each were constantly doing their own thing. I'm not even sure she knew their names. She repeatedly called Alice "sweetie". 

This is the only picture of Alice actually doing anything that resembles "swimming". It was more like "floating with assistance". 

The last day of class the teacher promised to turn on the water slide if everyone was good. This was obviously a lie because she was going to let them play for a few minutes anyway because she was over all of it and had some texts to return (this is not sarcasm, this is fact. She repeatedly paused the class to check her phone.), only she didn't know how to turn the slide on so she just kept splashing water on to it to make it slippery. Y'all.

Overall, swim lessons were good. While she didn't learn to swim, she did learn that she has ZERO desire to jump into any body of water. Bless it.

Until next time.....