Pool Practice

I really love living in the South!  However, there is one piece of California that I just can't shake...swimming.  As a child, my summers were spent in a pool.  Whether at swim practice, a swim meet, or spending the entire day at the Aquatic Center (with little more than a towel, sun screen, and a quarter to call home), I was swimming all day every day.  My teen years weren't much different.  By then we even had a pool in our own back yard.  By 14 I had started giving private swimming lessons and was helping coach the younger children on my swim team.  Then, after 10 years of teaching, I ran my own swim school for two years.  Jake spent his first year and a half on a pool deck or taking naps in a little red wagon in the back office.  Long story short...swimming has been a constant in my life...until now.

Swimming lesson at 2 months

Hanging out at the swim office

So needless to say, it makes me a little sad that my children don't have the access to pools and rec leagues that I had growing up.  But it drives me nuts that they don't know how to swim because we don't get to spend all summer swimming.

Why am I rambling about all of this?  Because I wanted to express how much I appeciated that we had at the pool on our vacation, and how much I enjoyed watching my kids learn and play.  The first day I kind of forced Jake into a "lesson" but it only took one before he was asking me to work with him.  Each "lesson" lasted about 15 minutes and then he would let me know he was done.  But he didn't end the lesson to go play, instead he would stay in the shallow end to practice.  Again and again he would go to the wall and push off into a stream line.  Watching him glide through the water with greater and greater ease, I flashed back to car rides more than 5 years ago.  Where I would listen to my baby's little froggy voice practice words over and over again while he was buckled in his car seat.  Barely a year old and JakePool Pr would repeat a word until it sounded just right. They grow up, but I don't know how much they really change.

His practice paid off and before our trip was over, Jake was gliding with a perfect streamline, kicking with strong full leg kicks, diving for rings, and even adding some tall slow motion big arms!  I am excited to get him in the pool more this summer, even if we have to fight the crowds on post a little.  Who knows, James might even take a break from jumping off the side of the pool to join us.