Thursday, June 30, 2011

Spectator Sport

Landon has been taking semi-private swim lessons with a friend every Sunday at 1:00. Some weeks I stay home with a sleeping Biscuit (since we routinely run roughshod over her afternoon nap, we try to allow her a full morning one), but our favorite thing is to all pile in the car and experience the fun of swim lessons together. The temps have been topping one million degrees lately, but the pool area is shaded and has pretty hill country views.

The lesson usually goes something like this: Landon, while wearing his Spiderman goggles in his car seat, chatters excitedly the whole way to the pool, "I love swimming lessons! Yay swimming! I'm going to swim REAL fast Mommy!". Claire jabbers back, because she too has much to say and prefers to say it one decibel louder than her brother. We arrive at the pool, bag of snacks, water, and towels in hand. Landon remembers that maybe he doesn't like swimming after all. Claire sees the water and tries her very hardest to dive in. Landon alternates between doing awesome and sobbing while floating on his back repeating "I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to." Claire performs serious missions around the pool deck, and occasionally makes a break for the water to show Ms. Christy that she can float too and won't even cry about it. JP cheers, I take some video, it's good times.

This past Sunday, Claire took a break from the heat and her exploratory pool missions to simply be a spectator while her brother swam with his big arms and floated on his back:

My brother is floating. This is mildly entertaining.


Wait, he appears bothered.


Whoah, what are they doing to him? Maybe I should help!


Mmmm, my graham cracker is DELICIOUS.


Wait, wasn't I worried about something a second ago?


Well, everything seems fine, no need to exert myself.

Oh look, my brother is floating, go Landon!

Now where's the rest of the graham crackers?

6 comments:

  1. Adorable post! Our little one loves swimming too ... so fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. K had swimming lessons recently too -- I'm glad he wasn't the only one who ended up sobbing! At his last one he actually got in the pool and swam around, which was a big improvement over sitting by the side and crying.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So adorable. And as a side note, what brand of shoes is Claire wearing?

    ReplyDelete
  4. So cute! I keep wondering when to get my son in the water but I don't want to start too soon and traumatize him!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Adorable photos. Love your captions!

    ReplyDelete
  6. WhitMc- they're Robeez. I think they're a few years old, they're hand-me-downs from a colleague's daughter. I like them because they're soft around the sides, but the bottom has a very light/thin robber sole. Claire prefers being barefoot, but tolerates these when forced.

    CP- Start as early as possible! JP and I are HUGE proponents of early swimming and water safety- it's just so important. Also, while Landon freaks our every single time he has a lesson, he really does talk about it happily non-stop the way out, and then the whole way back home (I love swimming mommy! I'm a super good swimmer!, etc.) Last year he cried 75% of the time he was at his lesson, but then this year he started asking, completely unprompted, "when am I going to my swimming lessons?" So the trauma doesn't seem to do any permanent damage!

    ReplyDelete