Alexander starts swimming

Today was Alexander's first swimming lesson. I really didn't know how he would go. He loves bath time so he could love it. He isn't the biggest fan of new experiences so he could hate it. Either way he looked mighty cute in his swimming costume!

As the lesson started I put Alexander down on the side of the pool and he burst into tears. He continued to cry even as I held him in the water. We started with the songs - 'Wheels on the bus' and 'If you're happy and you know it'. Alexander clung to me for dear life and continued to cry through it. He did settle when they started to swim to catch balls. He still held onto me but was happy to hold onto a ball too. I managed to swivel him around so he wasn't holding onto me so tightly and could use both arms to catch the balls. The next activity was swimming to catch a duck. He was ok doing this until Christine, the swimming teacher, spoke to us and Alexander started to cry again, probably thinking that he was going to be taken away from me. He did settle a little bit after as we kept swimming to the duck.

He was surprisingly ok with having water go over his head and was even ok with going under the water, staying with me though. He then went over to the edge to do Humpty Dumpty. I was amazed that he climbed out of the pool by himself, doing the correct technique. So clever! He was happy to do Humpty Dumpty 2 times. The 3rd time he wasn't so keen. That was then followed by monkey monkey along the side and he didn't want to let go of me for that! Next was kicking on his back and he was so relaxed with that which was nice. He liked swimming to find the little spaceships and put them back into the bucket. He even relaxed to do some paddling when swimming through the tunnel. He started to splash during the last song, the Hokey Pokey. It was nice that he settled. But then he cracked it again as I got out of the pool because I had to put him on the side and leave him to climb out. Poor little guy.

Fortunately he settled quickly when I dried him up and he was back to being all smiles. 

I hope he comes to enjoy swimming. I hope he settles and is ok with going with Christine for some parts. I'm sure he will, but it was hard to have him crying so much at the start!

I am proud of him for settling a bit. I am proud of him for getting into it. I am proud of him for persisting.