Swim school

As I go back in time and try to catch up, here are a few pictures of Austin in swim lessons. After he spent most of his waking hours in the ocean on our family beach trip, I decided that we needed to capitalize on his current love of the water with swimming lessons. While he loves the water, he also was pretty fearful of going under and definitely not confidant. We were able to get into one place that had just the right dates that fit our crazy schedule. Austin was excited about it initially, but then pretty much did not want to go every day after that. Despite his fear and resistance, he learned a lot and mostly became a lot more comfortable in the water. He technically did not move up to the next level because he failed to ever push off from the wall to the teacher. However, our main goal of helping him become more confidant in the water was met and he will now go under water on his own, jump off the side into someone's arms and is willing to float with help- all big steps from where he was before. I remember crying every day when I had swimming lessons as a 5 year old, so he did much better than I did. We are so proud of you, Austin!

Austin with his classmate and teacher, Miss Allison. She was firm but very nice- just what he needed. Surprisingly, at least half the kids in the program were Chinese or Indian. Maybe that made Austin feel at home :)?

On the last day at the very end Austin finally jumped on his own off the side into Miss Allison's arms. He would try hard the other days but always stop short and then try to talk his way out of it. The first day he told his teacher that maybe he would jump off when he was 17! Parents had to stay on the other side of the room during lessons, but Austin would often give us little waves. Usually whenever I looked at him he was talking...to himself or the teacher or his classmates. He is quite the talker.