Monday, October 1, 2012

Sawyer's Swim Lessons

I'm a couple of months behind on this post, but I wanted to make sure I got it in there because it was kind of significant in the life of Sawyer! 

Sawyer had swim lessons this summer in July and August! She was 15 and 16 months old and that's pretty much as young as you can do them (some people start at 6 months but that's more of teaching a baby how to float in water, not actual swimming). Sawyer learned how to jump into the water and go under, hold her breath, keep her eyes open, turn back around and grab the side of the pool! In case she is every near a pool or water and falls in, the point is to teach them to come back up and grab the side of whatever they just fell off of. Obviously I don't trust that she could save her own life…if anything, swim lessons were just fun for us to do and it got her use to the water! ;) She also learned the correct technique for swimming (on her stomach, chin up, and kicking her legs). We worked a tiny bit on floating on her back, but she was NOT a fan of that so we didn't do it much. We'll try more on that next summer. ;)

It was interesting because a couple of weeks after Sawyer finished her swimming lessons our church had baptism at a big water park in Canton (Splash Kingdom). Sawyer played in the kiddie-pool and would sometimes fall down and have her head under water and wouldn't be phased at all. Before swim lessons that would have freaked her out and she would have cried and wanted to be held. Instead, she would just stand back up and keep on going - playing and splashing and having a ball! It was so fun to see the growth she made in just a couple of months! She loves the water!

I was in the pool with Sawyer during all of her swim lessons (they were private lessons so it was just me, Sawyer, and the instructor). Casey got to come watch 2 times and he videoed and I took some pictures and videoed a couple of times as well. We also got her "graduation" under water picture from the instructor.
Here are some cute pictures of our little water bug! ;)
Here is Sawyer's underwater picture :) I love it!
She's a pro at keeping her eyes opening and holding her breath :)
Can't wait to get her back in the water next summer and see how she likes it! :)

1 comment:

jordanandrachel said...

That's awesome you're teaching her so young!! Love it:)