Sam's swimming lessons

Sam and I just finished up his first swimming lesson session that has gone on over the last two weeks.  He did amazingly well.....even with him being a very cautious child in general.  We learned to "get our kicks up", "take a breath and blow it out", and "do our arm strokes".  We also learned to jump off of the side of the pool and swim forward, hold on to the side of the pool, swim to the ladder, and Sam's favorite....go under water to get rings off the bottom of the pool.  The last two days were spent "jumping" (there were no willing participants that actually jumped...we had to "encourage" all of them) off of the diving board to either Ms. Julie or to the mamas then swimming over to the ladder to get out.  We do all of this to teach the kids that there is a safe place in a pool that they can reach other than an adult.  Unfortunately, you'll see him crying quite a bit, just about all of the kids did.....it's scary stuff!  But, if we had recorded video of him jumping off of the side of the pool and swimming to me (which we'll get at our pool sometime soon) you would see him really enjoying it!  That diving board is really high up!  If we had a couple more days to do the diving board, I believe that he would have eventually jumped off willingly....just like he does off the side of the pool.  And the rings......he could do that all day!  He would go down to get them (we have to guide them down there b/c they are so darn buoyant), come up and say "uh-oh!" and throw them do to get them again.  The lessons were hard but it's just the beginning.....we'll practice what we learned all this summer and we'll be back next summer for the 3 year old class.