More of the summer happenings around here....

At Malachi's last swim meet, Cale and Cosette had a blast swimming in the baby pool that El Dorado pool
fortunately let them swim in....since it was over 100 degrees!  He thinks he's almost swimming a stroke like Malachi.

 

But then, a few weeks later we put him in swim lessons.  He's always had a hang up about his ears
going under water because of his tubes, but besides that he loves the water. We struggled and struggled with
getting him to jump into the water, off of the side or off of the board.  Finally, after the second Monday of lessons
mommy took him to a neighbor's private pool and did some one on one tough love and got him adjusted to
jumping in. The next day, he surprised everyone else at lessons by being "brave and courageous" and going off of the board!

Here he is, so proud of his accomplishment.

He went off the board for the next three days, but then something spooked him and the last day
he wouldn't/couldn't go.

He was stuck in this position. He asked at least 30 times, "will I go under?"  Which he hadn't at all before.
I'd threaten to throw him in and he'd say, "no, mommy, I'll try, I'll try harder!"
He'd be almost there and then straighten up again. Later he talked about the battle going on in his mind.  Poor guy.

Finally, mommy had to follow through and warned him and then tossed him in, so he totally went under.
(I don't think the life guard really thought I would do it!)
But, afterwards, he wasn't mad at me, he said it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.

Here's other pictures from the day...

Testing the water to get ready to get in. His instructor was Miss Mandy....nice name.

Ring Around the Rosie...let's all blow bubbles!

They loved chasing her in Red Light, Green Light.

Overall, Cale did very well and ended up passing his Level I class.

 

   UPDATE!!!

Sunday, August 6th, just 2 days after his swim lessons, we all went to the neighbor's to practice in her pool.
We told Cale he was going under and jumping in over and over until he got comfortable with it.

NOT ONLY did he get COMFORTABLE! He learned to SWIM!!!!

Mark was so patient with Cale, he got him to jump in and swim farther and farther and finally to the other side of the pool!
Cale was so excited! Not only did we get over his fear, he's actually dog paddling around the pool!
Now he wants to go back to the pool and show his teacher that he can swim.

for a video click here
August 12, 2006 We went to the pool one last time to show his teacher that he could swim now.