Sunday, May 18, 2008

Getting so very anxious...



I would say Ady and Eric are really itchin' to be hangin out in the pool, right? We are getting so so anxious now that the weather is getting nice for the pool and backyard to be done. I guess I have always taken for granted having a backyard for my kids to play in, cuz now that they cannot play in the backyard, we are dying to be outside.



Supposedly once I pick the pool tile and stamped concrete finish this week we will be a couple of weeks away from diving into the pool... we will see though.
This is how the yard looked in March

And the beginning of April..

And the end of April...

And right now...

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Survival Swimming

Last year when I was a new mom again with a brand new baby Max and a 20 month old Adyson who didnt want to stay home just cuz we had a new baby. I decided to register Ady for a survival swim class for "something to do" it was 4 days a week for a 3 weeks session and I thought "why not?" My friend Camille was having her son Gavin do it and she loved it. So, we decided to give it a try. Well, I did not know how amazing the "KIDS CAN SWIM" survival swim classes really were. So here I am a year later with both my kids currently enrolled for a 2 weeks session. As you can see in the picture above that is Maxwell, my 13 month old floating on his back unassisted, the swim teacher is close behind him (just in case) but he can float on his back all alone, and this picture is only from his 2nd lesson. In Survival Swim their goal is to teach kids to "find the air" if they ever fell into any water or got into too deep of water they could immediately flip to their back to the "finding the air" position and keep themselves afloat until help came. Now, I would NEVER leave my kids alone or unattended around water but this class does equip them with the needed survival skills and well as gives them confidence in the water.



As you can see in the picture Max is learning to flip to his back on his own. And after his 2nd lesson he is already learning that to be a reflex almost when his mouth gets under water. It is incredible. They teach kids as soon as they can crawl these skills. I video taped Max and Ady's first lessons this season and I will post them once I have recorded their last lesson so you can see the amazing results in just a couple of weeks. Really, I cannot say enough about this program. It is more than I could have hoped my kids could learn at such a young age.



Now, you all may be wondering, is it mean? And I think NO WAY! Yes, both of my kids really had a hard time their first lesson, and few other times (Ady last year more than Max) but now both of them smile in the water and are not scared of the lessons any more. They are short 10 minutes a piece private lessons and the teacher is great with them! But, anyway I will get off my survival swim soapbox, but I just wanted to say how proud and amazed I am at how much my kids have learned. Eric too, he was a complete skeptic at first and he cannot believe how well the kids do. He came to their lesson today and could not believe how much Max had learned after just 4 lessons. Ady too, since she had already mastered finding the air last year, she needed only a couple days of brushing up on that skill now they are teaching her how to kick on her back to the side and get out of the pool. She is also jumping off the diving board then going immediately to her back once she comes up to the surface. I really will post the videos on here next week, I think you will all be surprised at how much they can both do. We are!!