Swimming Lessons
Unexpectedly, I got to take Emma to swimming lessons today. Susan’s car broke down last night, and I stayed home to help out. Watching Emma at her lessons is a lot of fun. When we first showed up, she sat inside the gate by a couple of other girls. One of the teachers walked up and said, “ok girls lets go” …and she didn’t go with them. That wasn’t her class, but to me they looked like the right age. The class she was with has two big boys in it, a couple years older than Emma. The class with the first set of girls spent there day on the steps in the shallow water. Emma’s class spent their time in the deep end. (It felt pretty cool being the daddy watching Emma with the big kids.) She was not as good a swimmer as the two boys, but she has a couple of years to catch up. I knew there had been some confusion with which class she was in at the beginning of the session, and this is where they ended up putting her. She did a good job, and had a good time with her teacher, Patrick.
They started the class working on their dives. The biggest boy was doing them standing up, Emma is still working on hers from her knees. She needs to get better at pushing off the side of the pool with her foot, and straightening her body as she dives.
By the end of today’s class, he had her doing the backstroke without help. Her first few tries, she sat up as soon as he moved his hand from under her and she sank. After a while, she was making it a few body lengths before stopping. He also had her try elementary backstroke, which I had to ask her what he had called it, because I didn’t know what it was.
