Eel

At the YMCA, they use various fish/aquatic mammal names for their various swim class levels. The beginners are Pikes, and Stephen has now graduated from being a Pike, and is now an Eel. His teacher said that they generally expect that the kids in the Eel class are able to go underwater by themselves, but she understands that Stephen has a really hard time with the whole breath-holding/bubble-blowing skill set, so they are passing him based on his swimming skills alone. And since she is the Eel teacher as well, I'm not to concerned.

When we started Stephen in swim lessons in February, we were worried because he wasn't making any progress, and his teacher was very crabby and impatient with him. We worried that maybe this wasn't the right thing for him... but the next month, he had a different teacher, who was the picture of niceness and patience, and he started to make a little bit of progress. By the time summer rolled around, and we went to Tucson, he had been in 4 sessions of swim lessons, and was starting to get the hang of it. Of course, daily swimming in Tucson cemented his skills, and upon our return to swimming this month, Stephen was at the top of his class, and able to swim with only the assistance of a back float. His teacher this month has been amazing - she does not believe that there is a cookie-cutter approach to teaching these children how to swim,, and she really plays to their strengths, while challenging them at the same time. She is just awesome.

So, here are some fun swimming pictures! There are some photos where it looks like the teacher is touching him, but she is just trying to get him to bring his legs up closer to the surface.

In the photo below, Stephen swam about 30 feet on his own!
I know this one is a little fuzzy, but I just loved his goofy face. He is not very good at holding on to the kickboard, and after this picture, he let go, so the teacher had him CHASE the kickboard instead.

We also had a cool snap last week, and I managed to snap this pretty good picture of our little GQ model. It was during those 2 days, though, that we realized that our little boy is not so little anymore, and has outgrown almost all of his cool weather clothing. Luckily, it's warmed up for a few more weeks!