Scheduling constraints meant that Katrina had her own lesson at 5pm, then the boys together at 5:30.
Katrina loved her teacher; I could hear her giggling from far away. For her, it turns out her swim lessons at the previous lame place did pay off to some extent, because she was willing to put her face in the water. The boys have always been fine with dunking their heads due to their early Water Babies lessons in Campbell, but Katrina never took to swim lessons as a baby.
During Katrina's lesson, the boys had fun playing ping-pong by the pool.
This place is a genuine "country club" with a hefty initiation fee to join, but it does allow the rank-and-file scrabble like us to pay for swim lessons without joining. They're not cheap, but swim lessons never are, and most aren't very good.
The boys were next, in a lesson together, against my better judgement. The swim class director assured me they could handle brothers. I was skeptical.
And I was right. Not these brothers. I had to intervene several times to threaten Gabriel (and carry out twice) with the loss of coveted computer-time for every time the teacher had to tell him to quit messing around (splashing Julian, blocking Julian when it was his turn to swim, going underwater and kicking his feet at the teacher). By the end of the lesson, the swim class director (not their teacher) suggested that next lesson, we split the boys up 15 minutes/15 minutes, so they're not in the pool at the same time.
Despite all this, much swim-learning actually occurred. Julian used his arms, and was introduced to the concept of intermingling breathing with actually swimming. Gabriel showed that he had learned something at our previous swim place, but really really needs to reinforce it, since he gives up after only a few strokes. I had to face the fact that at 9 years old, despite having started at 4 months old, he really can't swim.
I was struck by how much nicer it was to deal with an outdoors pool than indoors. It's SO much nicer to wait and watch -- downright pleasant, in fact. No surprise; I've grown to truly dislike indoor swimming myself, and haven't done it for years. I've swum outdoors in the rain and dark in 52-degree weather, but not indoors.
(Actually, I have not gone swimming myself for months until yesterday, when I really felt like I needed to -- and had a horrible swim for the first 20 minutes, then the endorphins kicked in and I felt phenomenal and drove home in a great, inspired, uplifted mood as I always do after swimming.)
3 kid swim-lessons this week, 5 next week. Despite the logistical challenges, I already totally enjoy not cringing at their lameness!
7/11/11 (cool date!)
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