Swim lessons for Micah

Way back in November, we won three free swim lessons for Micah in a silent auction at his preschool.  I finally succeeded in scheduling two of the lessons during the last week.
Living in Florida and constantly being around pools and bodies of water, we thought it was really important to get Micah some lessons so that he would know how to handle himself in the water.  He had a strike against him, which was having tubes in his ears twice.  So he hasn't been able to put his head underwater for pretty much his whole life, and consequently, he's been a little scared of water.
Miss Marcia, his swim teacher, is fantastic.  He started out his first lesson saying, "I don't want to go in the water!" and five minutes later she had him in the water without any tears or tantrums.  Turns out that she has some really cool toys that she only lets kids play with when they're in the water.  That's all he needed to hear.  Boys and their toys.

 

One of the things that Miss Marcia is teaching Micah to do is, "When you fall, reach for the wall."  And then he chug-chug-chugs himself along the wall to the steps to get himself out.  I'm so thrilled about that because I feel like he's a little safer in the pool.  No worries - I'm not going to toss him into the deep end and walk away, but it's helpful for him to start to be able to learn to take care of himself in the water.

When he accomplishes a task that she has asked him to do, Miss Marcia swirls him around in the pool, something that he enjoys - although you can't really tell by the look on his face in this picture.

Swimming on his own! (Well, with a floatie thing on his back and leaning on a floatie barbell, but that's pretty good for a three-year-old who wouldn't step foot in the pool at the beginning of his lesson!)

Getting goggles on him was a challenge, but he finally did it for one little trip around the pool.  Enough time to get a picture of him with them on!