Freedom in Swimming

For the past three weeks Ristow has been taking swim lessons. They are only 10 minutes long 5 days a week. Now you may wonder what anyone can learn in only 10 minutes and I thought the same thing at first. These swim lessons are basically survival swimming. Teaching babies and kids the basics of how to survive if they fall in a pool.
Ristow has always been afraid of getting his face wet and for years I have been trying to get him to just stick his face IN the water let alone under it. Now that he is 6 1/2 yrs old, we decided it was time. Christopher knew of a woman who did these survival swim lessons and we thought we would give it a try. She is amazing! Ristow went under the water the first day (to my amazement) and took off from there! He swims under water, floats on his back, does jumps off the side and is learning the specific strokes now. He has loved swim lessons but more importantly he has loved what learning to swim has given him... Independence!

This summer we swam at the camp pool when we were up visiting my brother in PA. There were lots of other bigger kids in the pool and Ristow didn't want to swim because he didn't want to have to wear his arm floaties. That is when I understood that he was finally ready to make a change.

Today I took Ristow and Jessica to the community rec center for a last day of summer vacation swim. It was awesome. Ristow was playing in the water and doing Cannonballs like he had been doing it his whole life. I actually was able to take Jessica to the kiddie pool and watch Ristow from there while he played we some other kids his age in the big pool. He LOVED it! He jumped and swam and played just like all the other kids.
Today, as we left the pool Ristow walked with his head a little higher and a big smile on his face. He said "Mom, that was a great time, wasn't it?!"