Swim Lessons: Week 4!

Somehow it always seems like the summer will be sooooo long, but then it's actually here...and it seems like it's flying!  Don't get me wrong, with my husband's crazy schedule, the days are sometimes long, but the weeks seem short.  We're now less than 5 weeks away from school starting, the season being over at the water park, Reese's birthday, and of course meeting our baby girl fits in the mix somewhere, too!

We finished up week 4 of swim lessons today.  We'll take next week off, and then the FINAL week of lessons for the summer will be upon us!

Wyatt's goal this week at lessons was to pass Station 6.  He has gotten really good at his backstroke and crawl, but I think that the butterfly is getting him!  It's amazing to me how well he's actually swimming though.

Reese started the week with one goal - to open her eyes so she could move on to Station 3 and learning to float.  She loves the water, but she's just so stubborn.

It doesn't help that she has had a new teacher almost every week, so it takes her some time to "warm up" to the new girl!  Ha!

At every single lesson, they put her under, and they check to see if she's looking.  And she doesn't do it.

Meanwhile her brother is under water swimming, and opening his eyes to see his instructor!

At the end of every lesson the instructors ask the kids what their favorite thing about lessons is - and the unanimous answer is almost always jumping!

Neither of these kids have any fear when it's time to jump in.

In fact, Wyatt usually goes back to fit in one extra jump.

On Tuesday afternoon, the kids and I went over to my parents' to have dinner with my mom and do a little bit of swimming.  I thought about getting some change to see if Reese would be enticed to open her eyes to pick it up off of the steps.  The pool was a little chlorinated, so I decided not to try that day.  And then, out of the complete blue, Reese announced that she was going to open her eyes and swim to me.  And she did!  4 times!

For the next 12 hours, all she talked about was how she was going to go to swim lessons the next day and finally get her Station 2 sticker.  I tried to talk her down so that she wouldn't be upset if she didn't get it, but she was pretty determined. 

She walked with her instructor and looked at her and said, "I can open my eyes now."  Then she went under the water and she actually did it.

I saw her teacher look over at another and she said, "Oh!  She actually opened her eyes!"  After she did that, they "tested" her....

And she passed!  She was soooo excited when she ran up to me to tell me that she passed Station 2!  Seriously, I am so proud of this girl!  She can be hard headed and set in her ways, but once she is determined to do something, she gets it done.  Sounds like somebody else I know this week! Ha!

Also, this is the article that I read in Parents magazine last month.  They finally put it online!