Just Keep Swimming...

When life gets you down do you wanna know 

what you've gotta do?  Just keep swimming. 
Just keep swimming. 

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. 

What do we do? 

We swim, swim.  
-Dory

This year I decided Zoey was going to learn to swim.  I looked into swimming lessons and the price quickly discouraged me from that idea.  As long as we're here in Midland, we have free access to the trailer park pool, and an opportunity such as this may not present itself in the future.  So since I'm not working, I decided I'd teach her myself.

Trying on goggles, with jammies.

She was on-board with the idea in theory, but the reality was a bit beyond her comprehension.  She has never enjoyed the feeling of water anywhere near her face, and the tiniest drop running towards her eyes in the bath would result in hysterical crying and an exasperated mother trying to calm the irrational child.

Fully entering a pool was equally challenging as she would tense up if she wasn't fully clinging to me; and stiffly thrash her arms and legs unwilling or unable to follow any direction from me or anybody else.  When I would try and get her to float on her back, with me supporting her; the same result, tense thrashing and refusal to put anything other than the back third of her head in the water.

With a full summer of practice available, I started her out first weekend the pool opened and started getting her accustomed to the water by going several days a week.  Our sessions were short since even if the weather was over a hundred, her little body couldn't stay warm in the cool pool and in a matter of 10-20 minutes she was shivering and her lips turned purpley-blue.

She started to relax a bit after a few weeks and was even willing to launch herself from the shallow end into my arms a couple feet away, but still no face in the water.  A low buoyancy life-jacket allowed her to start to tread water a bit, without the fear of getting anything on her face.  Then I got her a pair of goggles, which she refused to wear at first, but after much bribery, she put her face in the water, and from that moment on it was 1, 2, 3 and down she would go as long as she could. 

One month from the day we started our regular lessons, she suddenly put her face (with goggles) in the water and swam a good 4 feet to me, then raised her head to tread water.  It was as if she suddenly figured it out.  Her reward was a cute wetsuit I won on ebay, to let her stay a little warmer while swimming.

I am so proud of my little girl who now even puts her face in the water without goggles, although very briefly, and can swim.  We now can swim laps together in the pool with snorkels, unassisted by flotation and she loves get thrown to the bottom and swim to the top herself.  She still has a long way to go for me to be confident with her far from my rescuing reach, but she accomplished what we set out to do, and I couldn't be happier.