Swimming

I am determined to teach the little guy how to swim before the summer because it is not fun to be in a pool with him clinging to my neck. I don't want to pay for swimming lessons. I figure, how hard can it be to teach him myself? So about a month ago my friend Melissa and her son Thomas and Eric and I went to the Whitin Community Center for open rec swim. The boys had a blast and it wore all of us out. So that was the beginning of my adventure to teach Eric to swim. I wasn't all that productive but I figured we'd keep trying. Now open rec swim is $6 a person so it's not super expensive but not something I can afford to do all the time. However, Melissa and I took the boys today and found out that it is free on Saturdays! So I will hopefully be able to accomplish my goal of teaching Eric to swim the cheapest way possible. And then when he gets older he can tell everyone that he didn't take swimming lessons because his mom taught him how to swim! So before we went to day I watched some youtube videos to get some ideas on different techniques to teach him. He will go underwater no problem without swallowing half the pool. So today I worked on trying to get him to swim to the steps and to me which he wanted me to help quite a bit with. But I also got him to kick his legs and I wrapped a pool noodle under his arms so I could hold him up but he could learn how to coordinate his arms and legs at the same time. I have to say it was quite a successful swim. I feel like he will be swimming in no time. I put Thomas floaties on Eric's arms and he was able to let me let him go in the pool and just hang out for a few minutes but he's not used to not having me to hold on to him so he wasn't thrilled about it. I need to get him some swimmies for next time so he really work on coordinating his arms and legs together. The best thing about swimming is that if I take him out to dinner afterwards he clonks out for the night at like 6:30!