Monday, June 11, 2012

Isabelle's First Swim Lesson

This morning was Isabelle's first swim lesson. We decided that doing "mommy and me" classes was as easy and mommy taking Isabelle to the pool for free, so we held out for the teacher/student classes. This summer has been a bit rough with Isabelle getting acclamated back with the water. Last year, Isabelle would dive under the water to swim to us, but this year she has been a bit afraid to spend too much time swimming. She loves being in a pool were she can touch the ground and have her head above water, so I imagine that she has just learned to be fearful. Last year, there was never a thought in her mind that she may actually get stuck underwater. This year, she can think through things a bit more, thus the fear.
So off to swim lessons we went. As soon as I heard that Isabelle was assigned to "Jake", I knew there would be an issue. Isabelle loves everyone FEMALE and is generally a bit fearful of men she has never met. She remains shy in front of men, so when I attempted to leave her with "Jake" the waterworks came. Isabelle broke down. Insited she had to go to the bathroom (,although she had just gone), screamed for mommy and daddy (who were both present and watching her from afar). This lasted for about 15-20 minutes. Another female instructor/assistant came to her rescue and calmed her down enough to return her to "Jake". Isabelle finally realized that we were not leaving or coming to her rescue and no one had attempted to drowned her yet, so she gave in to "Jake" and went swimming with him. It was so nice that she finally found out swim class could be fun. Too bad she only got to enjoy it for 5-10 minutes. We'll see how tomorrow goes, but I'm hopeful that "Jake" has in fact won her over. We'll see......
Love, AKI&A
At the Pool with "Jake" - why do I keep putting his name in quotations?

Adelaide enjoyed swim lessons too....she had a nice little snooze

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yay Isabelle! She's going to have to come over and practice lots with Niko when we get back. Niko cried for half of his first lesson too. I'm glad she is no longer afraid of "Jake." :)