Swimming lessons

I really wish I could get some photos of the boys doing their lessons at the moment, but it's too tricky when i'm in the water with them:)

Jacob and Oliver are very different when it comes to water. Oliver just loves it, He's our little fish, spending more time under water holding his breath, than being out. Whereas Jacob is very reserved and HATES putting his face in. I think it got worse after he had his grommets put in. However, we're being very patient with him and just gently encouraging him to try each time we go swimming. A couple of weeks ago Gareth had a day off work when Jacob had a lesson (bank hol) so he came along too:) We finally discovered that Jacob doesn't like the goggles that he was using, and so we let him borrow Ollie's just while he was having his lesson, much to Ollie's dismay! OH MY GOODNESS!!! What a difference! He was very happy to put his face in, he even jumped in the deep end without holding anyone's hands, and not just once! His teacher was so pleased with him that she gave him a certificate and some stickers! Then after his lesson he let Gareth help him do a front float with his face in the water! So the next week I bought him another pair of goggles just like Ollie's and he did it all over again!! I only wish that we had found this out earlier! He can't move up a class this time, but he will be having extra lessons during the holidays in July, so he should catch up and be able to move in to the crocodile group next time!

Now for our little fish, I've not been sure on the lessons we've been having ( I have to go in with Ollie as he is under 3). We have a great teacher, Ryan, but it's a big group of 9 and Ollie is one of the older ones. So it's quite tricky for his teacher to see just how confident he is and how bored he's getting just doing stuff more suited to less confident, younger children.
However today, only 3 children showed and Ryan wasn't there. So we had a lady called, Bianca, who is just soooo good and pushed the children (and us parents!) more. She used a big mat for the children to sit on facing the middle, we sang 'Humpty Dumpty' and then we had to make our children fall in the water backwards so that they somersault and come back up again to grab the mat. They all looked quite shocked the first time, and were all done by the third:) But they need to learn how to get up again just in case if they ever fell in with out being forward facing, they would know what it felt like and know what to do. We also had to hold each of our kids, push off from the wall to go under water, under the mat and out the other side. (I know where Jacob gets his dislike of being under water from!!!! ) Despite me panicking just a little, Not that Ollie realised, I think this was the best lesson we've had and Ollie didn't want to finish! I can't wait for next term when Ollie moves in to the Goldfish group!!