Evan the Alligator

Evan is still doing swimming lessons twice per week.  As I wrote about before, he passed through the first level "Turtles" in just one session.  Since then he's been through two sessions of the 2nd level "Alligators", and is currently in his 3rd.

This level is all about learning to float in the water comfortably.  Not only do they have to learn to backfloat and tummy float, but also roll back and forth between the two.  His first session he didn't seem to pick up much, and while he didn't get scared off by it, he spent a lot of time "sinking" and probably swallowing a lot of water.  I say this because he actually puked in the pool one time near the end of class. :(

Yet, in this past session I feel like he made huge strides.  For one, he completely learned how to back float on his own!!  We went to the rec center pool a few weekends this past month, and while we played and had fun (and Evan constantly wanted John to take him down the big, fast tube slides), we also worked with him on his lessons.  I could tell that he was scared for me to let go when he was practicing his back floats, given that previously when the teacher or one of us would let go from holding him he usually got a little scared, pulled his body inward, sank a bit and gave up.   So I let him lay there for awhile with me holding him, all the while telling him to just stick his tummy to the ceiling.  When he did this, I felt his body floating nearly on its own, and so I very slowly let go.  Sure enough, he was floating by himself!  And once he did that and realized he could do it, the rest was history!   After that point, the teacher would get him started and he'd float by himself for quite awhile (until whenever he decided to stop), while she'd help the next person with their float!

My little back floater...One proud mama!!

Then in the last week of his 2nd session, he also started to do more work on his tummy floats in class.  In fact, the very last class of that session he started trying to swim across the pool.  He's float on his tummy, face in the water, and kick his legs and move his arms.  He never got very far, given his form was off, so he'd just stop and stand up to rest and take a breath before trying again.  I was so proud of him.  The teacher was too.  There was one class that she was putting her arms in the air out of excitement for him.  She told us in his final evaluation that he's doing his back floats so well, and that is often the thing that takes longer for most kids to learn (she said the tummy floats usually come first), so she thinks he's really close.  I'm therefore wondering if this 3rd session of "Alligators" will be the charm?  Will Evan soon be a "Seal"?