Swim lessons: The Grand Finale

Today was the last day of swim lessons and all I can say is WOW! Caleb is amazing in the water now, and he's decided he wants to be a lifeguard when he's old enough. The pool manager is happy about that!

Elisa has had her first experience working toward a goal. As part of her swim lessons each day, she has had to jump off the diving board and swim back to the side. However, when we've gone during public swim time, the lifeguards wouldn't let her be in the deep end of the pool until she could pass "the test". The test is swimming the width of the pool using the crawl stroke. I was disappointed to hear this, because she was nowhere near able to swim that far. When she first learned about this rule, she cried and cried because all she wanted to do was go off the diving board. The lifeguards were firm, and wouldn't even let her be in the deep end with me.

I told her that I understood her disappointment, but that she should use it to motivate her to work hard and learn to swim all the way across. She has been swimming every chance she got, and last night we went to Family Night Swim at the North Bend pool, where she was able to be in the deep end. She jumped of the diving board over and over, and even did the rope swing and loved it. She just loves jumping into the deep water!

Today, near the end of her last lesson, she told her teacher she wanted to swim across the pool so she'd be allowed to jump off the diving board during public swim. They let her try, and she did it!!! And let me tell you, she was one proud, excited little girl when she got out of the pool. She said, "Everytime I got a little tired, I just thought, 'I want to go off the diving board.....I want to go off the diving board...' and I kept on swimming."