Swimming Lessons One Year Later...

It was a year ago that Faith started swim lessons.  As I sat watching her today, I was filled with amazement at the progress that this little girl has made in one year.  When she began, Faith would go in water...as long as her feet could rest comfortable on the bottom.  This greatly limited her enjoyment to knee deep lake or ocean water and the steps of a pool.  And now, she is jumping in, going under water, diving for rings - the list goes on. 

Driving to lessons today, she had one of those moments where life went from good to bad and she declared that she didn't want to go to swim lessons today.  Being the sensitive mom that I am, I didn't take her opinion into account and continued to drive.  The sullen look on her face as she walked to the pool signaled to her teacher that this was not a happy moment for Faith!  I uttered a "good luck!" and sat back to watch. And what I saw was her attitude quickly change as she swam and played in the pool!  She now loves to swim!  Today was her best lesson all year!  The weeks of trying to get the arms and legs to move at the same time clicked today, and she actually looked like she was swimming!  What a difference a year can make...and a lot of hard work! 

Here she is putting it all together!  She still needs to work on the whole breathing to the side thing - when she needs to breath the head lifts and down go the legs! 

Practicing arm strokes on the noddle

So while we aren't ready to give Bob Bowman (Michael Phelps' swim coach) a call, I couldn't be more proud of the progress this little lady has made in a year.