{Summer Bucket List} Learn to swim!

While the boys have always loved swimming or any sort of water play, we never signed them up for formal lessons. Now that we have a pool to frequent, we went back and forth on whether or not to sign them up for lessons this summer. We decided to save the money and to wait a month or so to see if either of them could master or surpass the basic skills with our minimal parental instruction.

Our first weekend in the pool Aiden could swim several feet on his own, not a great distance at all, but  I thought with guidance that he might be swimming on his own by the end of the summer, though I still couldn't decide if we'd be able to help him or if we needed a more qualified teacher. We put "Learn to swim!" on our summer bucket list as a general goal for Aiden to work towards.

Fast forward two to three weeks, and our little fish is swimming respectable distances in the deep end with confidence! We set more specific goals for him to swim the width of the pool and then, later on, the length of the pool on his own with special treats to follow upon completing each goal.

 

As of this week, he is soooooooo close to swimming the width of the pool by himself, and he can swim about half the length, depending on how tired he is! Wow! I really think he has the skills to meet his goals but needs to build up more endurance and stamina. He can jump in the deep end and swim to the side on his own. From the moment we arrive at the pool, he never stops jumping in and swimming!

Caleb is also quite the fish! He specializes in jumping in while giving an Indian war cry! Hilarious! Everyone gets such a laugh watching him!

 

But he has mastered basic swimming skills. He mostly wears his adorable floatie in the water, but we take it off regularly and have him practice reaching, pulling, and kicking in our arms or with a kick board. He balances really well with the kick board! And when he jumps in to the pool without a floatie, he can kick up to the surface on his own.

So we're making great progress, and I'm excited to see how far they come by the end of the summer.

{Aiden swimming in the deep end!}