Grady the Fish

My mom met Amy's mom when she took me to my first swim lesson when I was around 18 months old. That chance meeting ended up turning into a lifelong best friend, so it's always been in the back of my mind when thinking about taking Grady to his first swim lesson.
We are lucky in that Grady's since Grady's day care is at the YWCA, we get to take him to swim lessons for free...even better! We had our first lesson 3 weeks ago. - it's on Tuesday evenings at 5:45, so I go directly from work to pick him up and get us both changed. That is a task in itself! Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect; he has always loved the water but is not a fan of laying on his back.
There are 3 other kids in his class, which is the "baby 1" class for everyone under the age of 2. Two of the kids are babies, around 8 months old and the other one is in Grady's daycare class - Nolan. Nolan has been taking swim lessons pretty much straight since he was 6 months old, so he's an old pro... Can put his face in the water and everything! The 2 babies didn't know WHAT was going on. So it was kind of hard to judge Grady's reaction. The instructor lead us through some games to get them used to splashing around and "dig, dig, digging" (doggie paddle) back to the side of the pool. Grady generally went along with it, except for the parts where we get them to float on their back, just as I had expected!
Grady's favorite part is right at the end. They have a big plastic slide the instructor puts up to the side of the pool, and she slides the kids down it and we catch them in the water. Grady LOVES it and wants to do it over and over! That's really the only time I can get him to do his "dig dig dig", so he can get another turn at the slide.
The last couple weeks have been a bit better, and especially since I have been getting there soon enough to get him a snack and let it settle before we swim. He acts like he is starving when I pick him up!

-Jessica

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