Back to the Pool

We are back at swimming lessons after the summer off due to scheduling conflicts.  This time around, the boys are both LOVING swimming.  It's so fun!  We go two nights a week and the boys ask everyday if they get to go to swimming today or not.
Sam is in an Advanced PreSchool class where he is transitioning from the floatie strapped to his back to the swim noodle.  He is very excited about swimming more "on his own" and is making progress on his attempts at back float.  He loves jumping in the water, so much so its hard to remember the screaming and crying in the earlier lessons.   I do remember those days though when I watch other parents deal with it - I want to go up to them and point to Sam giggling and smiling and tell them to hang in there.  He talks to his teacher from the minute he goes over to the bench to the minute the class is over - he tells her jokes, tells her about school and what we had for dinner and any other random thoughts he comes up with.  She is very tolerant of him and tells me I have "the cutest boys around". 
Casey started this session in his PreBeginner class for a third time, still needing to master the "torpedo glide".  We have worked on it at every opportunity since his last class and felt like he had made a lot of improvement.  And just the way things work out, this time he ended up with classmates who were all in the class for a first time and were younger and had a lot less confidence in the water.  We noticed that right away but weren't too worried.  He was doing great on the torpedo glides and at the start of the third class, his teacher stood back at he test distance and Casey glided to him with no problem.  He then picked Casey up and lifted him over the lane line into the next class.  Casey doesn't always just "roll with it" so we watched with interest.  The new teacher took a few minutes to show Casey the motions for the freestyle stroke and then let him try it, which he did pretty well.  But when he came up we could see he was crying.  But he hung in there and enjoyed swimming with the class on noodles to the deep end and jumping in.  At the end of the class, he told us his shoulders hurt and that's why he had been crying.  We tried to emphasize how good he was doing to be moved up in mid session.  I talked to the teachers and the first just felt Casey would be bored given how much further along he was than the other kids in the class.  The second teacher said that he would help him warm up more next time to avoid the sore shoulders and that he was in the right place because he picked up the stroke pretty quickly.  Both agreed that if he would be unhappy in the new class it would be better to stay in the first and it wouldn't hurt anything.  Casey's arms felt better by the next class and he seemed to assume he was going back to the new class.  His biggest concern was which bench that class meets on, so we got that worked out and he was all set.  Since that night, he is loving this new class!  He is jumping into the deep end with no noodle and swimming back to the wall underwater.  It's amazing! 

We sit in the bleachers and watch them both have a ton of fun - I wonder if they would get into swimming later in life.  They were both pretty amazed to hear that you can be on a team and race.  I think I could be a swim mom - I can handle lots of snacks and trunks and towels and dressing in layers for sitting in the humid pool area.  No problem.