just keep swimming

Last July 4th Pearson fell in the hot tub.  Grandaddy was right by him and jumped in after him (in his clothes), but it really scarred Pearson.  He has pretty much been afraid to swim ever since.  Even though we really don't have anywhere to swim here in Tyler, I knew I needed to get him in swim lessons to get over his fear of the water.  I honestly didn't care if he learned how to swim or not, I just wanted him to feel confident in the water again.  

I chose to do swim lessons through Tyler Swim Academy.  All the swim instructors were swimmer for Robert E. Lee High School.  I chose here because I liked the idea that it was two weeks long.  I felt like one week wouldn't do much for Pearson.  He needed more days for it to all soak in.  

 Pearson was over the moon excited that he got to wear goggles!!

He was a little shy and timid in the water the first few days.  He actually had one instructor the first day and then got switched to a different group.  Once he had been with Mr. David for a couple of days he really started to come out of his shell and get brave in the water.  

 Swim lessons were from 2-2:30 Monday-Friday the first week and Monday-Thursday the second week.   It was SO hard to keep Nash entertained for those 30 minutes.  He wanted to be in the water so bad.  I could have stayed in the car, but I really wanted to be able to see what Pearson was doing.  Most days I ended up giving him my iPhone and letting him watch a show. 

 On the last I brought my good camera in and got some shots of him.  I also took some videos as well, but I'll probably never get them put up on the blog. Just being honest!! 

 His teacher Mr. David was so nice.  We loved him.  One evening we saw him driving down Broadway with some friends and Pearson thought it was the coolest thing ever that we saw him outside of swim lessons.  He also asked one day if he could just wear his belly button like David does.  Ha! I always put a swim shirt on him and he wanted to go without it just like David.  

 Pearson got really good at going under water and getting rings.  That is something he wouldn't have done at all before swim lessons.  

 Jumping off the diving board at the end of lessons was his absolute favorite thing about swim lessons.  He would do this 100 times if his teacher would have let him.  

 Although I wouldn't quite call him a swimmer and I definitely won't let him swim without any floaties, we made some great strides this summer.  We'll be taking swim lessons again next summer and hopefully have a membership to a pool so we can swim more often!!

I'm just pleased that my big boy learned to love the water again and overcame his fear from falling in last summer.