Swimming Lessons

We signed our kids up for private swim lessons this summer with Ms Amber, a friend of my sister's. Ms Amber did an amazing job teaching all three of our kids. It was remarkable seeing the kids' progress over the course of 6 lessons. At the first lesson, Adley was with Jaden and Cody, which we quickly learned wasn't the best setup. Thankfully Adley was able to switch to be with another 3-year-old for the next sessions.

Unfortunately, even though Adley has always loved being in the water, she wasn't a big fan of the lessons. At all. She was pretty much either whining or full out crying every time. See her sad little expressions?? The poor girl eventually gave up calling out for me (since I never came to her rescue) and whined for Daddy the whole time. So sad.

 Surprisingly, though, despite all her fussiness, Adley still listened to Ms. Amber and followed all of her instructions. She may not have ever been happy to get in the pool, but she sure made some rockstar progress! By the end of the third week, Adley even swam across the short length of the pool all by herself. It was remarkable! We were very grateful for Ms. Amber's patience and expertise with crying students like Adley and for our little girl's strong determination too!

Here is a video of Adley from the first week of lessons. This will demonstrate just how much progress she made by the end.

Ms. Amber emphasized safety by always telling the kids to "swim to the wall" if they ever fell into a pool. Here is Adley's first successful "swim to the wall."

And finally-- Adley's successful trip across the pool! I think she suprised us all. Woo-hoo, Adley!

On the last week, Ms. Amber helped Adley jump into the pool before swimming to the edge.

Jaden and Cody have several years of lessons under their belt, so they mainly just needed to work on their technique. Ms. Amber helped the boys kick more smoothly and how to breathe more effectively. Both boys grew in confidence with the various strokes and even (kind of!) learned the butterfly stroke.

Here is a video of them swimming on week 1:

Here is the freestyle stroke a bit further into lessons:

And the backstroke:

At the end of many of their lessons, Ms. Amber let the boys do cannonballs or other silly jumps into the pool. They absolutely LOVED this!

The boys also worked a bit on diving.

With our crazy Covid-changed world, we were so thankful that lessons were still an option this summer. We were very pleased with all that our three kids accomplished.