Little Fish

There are a few pictures at the bottom.

As I've mentioned, this was Ethan's 3rd summer of swim lessons.  Each year "Miss Erin" has expanded on similar skills and/or taught him a few new ones.  After the first few days this year, Ethan would fight me on some of his least favorite skills, but mostly because he didn't like repeatedly practicing them.  The day after his last lesson we went to my mom's pool, and he did all the things he fought me on, but happily and voluntarily.  Now I just hope I can keep these skills up throughout the summer without a pool or a nearby public pool.  If any of you with private or neighborhood pools want to invite us over, we'd gladly accept! :)

For my own record, and because it's pretty amazing, below are the skills Ethan has learned and a bit about his progression.  I love how these skills are helping him to be a bit safer and giving him a great foundation for learning to swim.  I also love that he now has lots of "games" to play in the water.  After 2 hours at Nana's pool we had to drag him out.

At 2 years, 7 months:

Floating: He can float on his own, especially with floaties on his arms (he could do this last summer too).

Dipping: He's totally fine being dipped under water and dips his toys in the bath and pool after singing them Ring Around the Rosie and counting to 3 like we do.

Grabbing the wall:  We put him under the water, push him towards the wall, and let go; he grabs the wall and hangs on.  He didn't like practicing this at swim lessons, but at Nana's pool, he always put his face in the water and reached out when we brought him near the wall.

Monkey Walk:  Ethan has always hated this, but this year he decided to really like it.  At Nana's pool he monkey walked for at least 10 minutes straight and liked playing chase with us.  (Monkey walking means he holds the side of the pool and moves his hands to slide along the wall).


Picking up toys:  Ethan could do this the last two summers as well.  We'll put diving toys on a step and he has to lean down, put his face in the water, and pick up the toys.  This year, after the first few days of me throwing back every ring he picked up so that he could keep practicing, he utterly, and loudly, refused to pick anything up until it was time to clean up.  Then he would happily pick up several toys and put them away.  At Nana's, he liked putting his toy snakes down and picking them up.  He even let me put them on a deep step and swim him down to the bottom where he would pick them up.

Eyes in:  While I am holding him and asking him to kick, I'll say "1-2-3 eyes in!".  I actually only have to count and he puts his entire head about .5-1 inch under the water, not just his face.  There were a few days of swim lessons that he fought me on this, but usually he would complain until I counted and then dunk himself.  At Nana's pool he put his eyes in frequently and without me asking.

Multitasking: Ethan now uses his arms and legs while "swimming" (I still hold him up).  During swim lessons he would stop kicking to put his eyes in when I asked, but at Nana's pool he did all three together.  We'll keep working on this because he needs to be able to put his eyes in and swim to be ready for the next class level up, which we may do at the end of the summer.

Jumping in:  We started this at the end of his swim session and I thought he would be too scared, but he LOVED it!  He jumps in, I let him go under, and then turn him around to grab the wall when he comes back up.  His main problem now is waiting for us to say 1-2-3.  At Nana's he counted to 3 on his own and jumped in next to me when I was turned away talking.  Mike and Nana don't turn him back to the wall when he jumps in, but Ethan stills says "back to the wall" and turns to reach for it.

Passing under water:  We practice in swim lessons putting Ethan under the water on his tummy, pushing, and letting go as his momentum takes him to another person.  After Mike and I had thrown him back and forth for awhile at Nana's pool, I started passing him under water instead (good practice and to avoid another foot to the stomach like he accidentally gave me once).  Then Ethan started requesting to only be passed under the water!

Wearing goggles:  Ethan now wears goggles the whole time he is in the pool--2 hours last weekend!  After we got out he convinced me to go back in for a few minutes, and after about a minute without goggles he was requesting to put them on again.  They sure help with all this under water stuff!

There are probably other things I'm not thinking of, but basically Ethan is doing great in the pool and having fun doing it, hooray!  Oh, I should mention that his favorite thing about swim lessons is every day we would throw a rubber ducky and he would have to kick and swim with his arms to go fetch it.  He loved that rubber ducky!


Miss Erin has a playground that Ethan got to play on every day.  He surprised me by climbing up this rock wall by himself.

 On the last day the kids got Otter Pops.  Ethan was excited about the idea, but didn't really eat it.  He still hasn't really embraced the whole popsicle idea.

 I bribed him the last two days of swim lessons to stop crying and fighting me and it worked quite well.  The last day I bribed him with a scoop of ice cream (we had a free pass from the library).  So here he is with an ice cream cone.  This may be the first non-soft serve he has had on a cone.

He is the slowest eater ever if I don't push him along.  He would get a little tiny bit on the tip of his tongue with each "lick".  Even with me taking several big bites of his kiddie cone to help the process along, it still took him 20 minutes just to get the ice cream flat with the cone.  I let him take it in the car then.  When he got home he started eating the side of the cone like it was corn on the cob and got melted ice cream all over as it dripped out the side/bottom.