I have spent a lot of time at our city pool this summer. Which is funny considering that we only went once, maybe twice, last summer and never before that.

At the end of June, Hannah had her first swim class, which consisted of lessons Monday through Thursday for 2 weeks. Hannah was a little uncomfortable in the water at first, but she really started to enjoy it by the end. Didn’t quite get the courage to jump off the diving board yet.

Then Samantha got to take swim lessons too; her and Daddy did the Parent/ Child course that is offered for small children in the evenings – also for 2 weeks. Samantha loved having her first school-type activity. Finally she was the star of the hour and Hannah was watching her. Samantha was really proud that she had her “swimming lessons,” and she loved sharing it with Daddy. Samantha wasn’t afraid of the diving board and would even ask to be dunked!

Then we decided to send Hannah to another round of swim lessons. She had gotten the opportunity a couple of times to try the diving board with Samantha’s class, and she seemed a whole lot braver this time around. I’m so glad that we did the second class. Now Hannah loves the water. She had a little scare in the deep end, but she still jumped off the High Dive all by herself. Amazing!

Finally, one more lesson – well half a lesson. I don’t swim myself, so I decided to try out these swim lessons and see if they can help a 27 year old Mom. I took 4 private lessons and I certainly haven’t mastered swimming, but now I have a much firmer grasp on how to tread water, do the front crawl, back stroke, and breast stroke. And I even jumped off the diving board! Even I didn’t think it was possible, but I did it! I still won’t be able to rescue my kids from drowning, but maybe now I won’t have to worry about them trying to rescue me.