Water Babies

We’ve been a family of loyal swim students for the past 15 weeks, and in that time, we’ve had our ups and downs… our victories and our infinitesimal, I mean incremental improvements.

I’m happy to report that last Saturday JJ graduated from an o-fish-al Seahorse to an o-fish-al Jellyfish.  Woot-woot.  I’m not exactly sure what the test entailed, but I know it involved an unassisted circle-swim in the deep end: a critical water safety/mommy-can-now-kind-of-sleep-at-night maneuver which involves jumping in and getting back to the side without sinking to your death.

The test may have also included sitting on the edge of the pool and splashing your neighbor by kicking your feet like a maniac, while Coach Justin tests the other potential baby boulders in your class.  I saw Jake and a new boy passing this skill with flying water, uh, colors.

Nathaniel continues to excel at climbing out of the pool and repelling Coach Ali.  I felt better a few weeks ago when a friend at work told me her son used to jolt when he touched the surface of the pool, like it was filled with lava.

Over the course of the last month or two, Nate’s achieved the following advancements:

• Beginning to assert “No agua.  No agua!” while getting into his swim trunks… at home.
• Only starting to yell “No agua.  No agua!” at an embarrassingly loud volume as we enter the swimming facility.
• Smiling and not crying except when Coach Ali gets near him.  Pointing at her and emphasizing via wild arm waves, “No dat.  No dat!”  (“Dat” being anything that involves allowing her to touch him.)
• Smiling and laughing in the water, except during the welcome song.  Screaming only when we sing “Nate is in the pool, Nate is in the pool, Heigh-ho a-derry-oh, Nate is in the pool.”  He does not want anyone to know that he is in the pool.
• Only yelling, “No unner, no unner!” periodically.  That means no under (the agua).
• Actually saying, “Yeah agua, yeah agua, fun!” last weekend.  And then waiting until he was in the pool to scream at the sound of his own name and insist “no dat” and “no unner.”

Natesy and I basically follow our own curriculum which bears very little resemblance to what Coach Ali and Coach Andrea are trying to teach us.  We don’t do the slide.  We don’t climb around on the floating platform.  We don’t monkey-walk.  We definitely don’t dive to the bottom to pick-up rings.  We do retrieve balls and throw bath toys.  Sometimes we’ll do some big arms and kickers.

Last weekend we did lots of back floating (“Foat, foating!”), and then I let his face go under multiple times when he flipped over, followed by a lot of positive reinforcement high-fives.  It’s my very, very slow patented water immunization process.  It’s even resulted in smiling while being tossed in the air and splashed in the face.  Plus, he’ll let water run all over his head and in his eyes in the sha-sha (shower).

I’m sure it’s totally not PC to force rank swimmers in the Barnacle class, but since this is my blog and we have no qualms about our placement, I’ll put it out there:

1. Shiaya & her dad (The super star, A student, teacher’s favorite who has no fear and is a water-loving dolphin girl that most certainly was born under water.  She doesn’t talk, and if she could keep her head above water in the shallow end, I’m sure they would’ve graduated her by now.)
2. Daniel & his dad (He might be the oldest in the class which is good.  We like having bigger kids in the class so as to divert attention from us.)
3. Ruthie & her mom (She gets better every week.  We always have to get out of her way as she is following the prescribed curriculum and we are blocking the activity sequence.)
4. Rafael & his mom (I still see him crying sometimes which makes us feel better.  You know what I mean.)
5. Charlotte & her dad (One of the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen.  She should be a model.  She’s so little she can’t really follow directions or talk back, but she just bobs along and under and seems cool with it.  She’s only near the end of this list because she’s maybe a quarter of Nate’s age and the size of his left fist.)
6. Nate & Me (Honestly.  This is not an exaggeration.)

This past weekend Nathaniel had an insanely great time playing with Jake in the new blow-up swimming pool I bought at Target, which has the added bonus of functioning like a cushioned Slip’n Slide.

And in a week we switch to a new earlier swim class… I’m coaching Nate to seize this opportunity for us to completely reinvent ourselves.  Shed our past and embrace our inner water babies.  No one will even recognize us.

Maybe we’ll both get new bathing suits.