Swimming?

It's kinda hard to take pictures of your kid's swimming lesson, when you have to deal with a body conscious Mama and the problems of shooting on a cloudy day across a pool.

Also, Sam hasn't quite learned how to always look for the camera and smile yet. (Let's hope he never does.)

Anyway, the boy is taking lessons at the nearby YMCA. It's not like they teach toddlers how to do the butterfly. It's more learning about how to be in water and get used to it. I have my doubts about the overall usefulness of said course. It's not like the boy is going to tell us how much he learned. On the other hand, it's special together time with at least one parent, and you hope he gets a chance to get used to being around other kids. If not the water.


Sam and Meredith enter the YMCA, Sam decked out in his hat, swim shirt, swim trunks and Croc shoes. Did I mention it was a cloudy day? Meredith applied sunscreen once we got poolside.

Me and my wife have had several conversations about Sam's "red" crocs. As they seem to be more mauve. My wife insists she bought them out of the boys' section. It was Todd who pointed out that it's not the color, so much as the fact that he's a boy, and he's wearing Crocs.

Ah well, for a 22-month-old, practicality overrules all.

The swim lessons are fairly basic and unstructured. The kids get in the pool, splash with their legs, splash with their feet, and then work through various aspects of being in water -- jumping in, going under, etc.

The lesson begins.


And we work on the floating on the back.

There is generally one moment of the lesson where the kids are brought along further than they were the day before. On Thursday, this was the instant the children were all dunked -- very quickly -- under water and brought back up. It was as if eight crying and screaming spigots were all turned on at once.

Still, Sam obviously enjoyed himself, splashing all over the place and making his noises. I guess I'm a normal enough parent as I just enjoyed the chance to watch.