Audrey's First Swim Lesson

This past Monday Audrey had her first swim lesson which was one of those first time mom experiences I won't soon forget lol. Audrey won't be 3 until Mid June, but being the overly zealous mama that I am, I deducted that Audrey was just too far advanced in her swimming to be in the 6month to 3 yr old class where mommy held her and we just worked on getting her acclamated to the water. So, I enrolled her in the pre-school 3-5 year old swim lessons. Her first lesson I was really nervous because I had no idea what to expect or what to tell Audrey to expect and I am one of those, "need to know what to expect" kind of people....

As I was preparing Audrey for her first lesson, I told her that she would be in the water with her swim instructor but I would be by the pool watching so everything would be ok. Well, as luck would have it, when we arrived at the pool and the instructors came to take the children, they promptly instructed us moms/dads to exit the pool area and sit behind this glass wall that was on the other side of the pool. So off they marched Audrey and I felt this sort of panic come over me wondering if Audrey was going to be at all upset by this, but she was so overly excited about swimming that she was like "cya Mom, Come back and visit me when you can " ;-)

So there I sat behind this glass wall at our local YMCA watching Audrey's first lesson. As I watched Audrey, it suddenly became very clear to me that Audrey really did not grasp the fact that this was a swim lesson because she wasn't paying attention at all to the teachers and pretty much was doing her own thing. I don't think I have ever squirmed that much in my seat ! I spent the next 35-40 minutes watching Audrey basically exhaust the two swim instructors in her group as they tried to keep Audrey's attention. At the end of her lesson when I went into the pool area to pick up Audrey I know I had this really "deer in the headlights" look on my face. The first question that the instructor asked was "how old is she?". I told her that she was getting ready to turn 3. I asked the instructor if she thought I needed to put Audrey in a class for younger children and she said no she would be fine. Needless to say, I had a long talk with Audrey before her next lesson about listening and paying attention to her instructors and doing EXACTLY what they told her. I actually was able to be in the pool area for her 2nd lesson although I was on the other side of the pool and Audrey did 100% better. The lessons for 3-5 year olds at the YMCA are fantastic so far. They cost of 53.00 for the whole month of May and she goes twice a week to them. We are not members there either. They are really trying to teach these children to swim and not just playing with them so I am extremely happy with our lessons thus far. Hopefully I'll be posting Audrey can swim in a few weeks !