Swimming, Drawing, and Dancing

Swimming

Jack started swimming class at the YMCA today. It's through his daycare; kids who sign up (whose parents pay for them) all ride a bus a few miles to the Y, and then go in the pool and apparently get some instruction. (We'll be going to a future class to peer from the observation booth.) I'd talked to one of his little friend's Mom, and his teachers, and they all spoke well of it, so what the heck.

Jack was very excited. We dressed him in his swimsuit this morning, with sweat pants over it, and gave him his superheroes backpack with underwear and a towel in it. Right after breakfast, Jack said, "I want to go in to school now." This was rare, plus it was half an hour before he normally went in. "Er, OK. Let me get dressed," I said. When I came down, Jack had his shoes on and backpack slung over his shoulder. Aside from not wearing a jacket, he was ready to go.

Between 10:30 and 11 (when the class was), we fretted, worried that the phone would ring. (He and I hadn't actually been swimming since briefly taking group lessons there a year earlier, which Jack seldom enjoyed, it being cold and all.) It didn't. Emily picked him up at the end of the day, and Jack, apparently, had done great. The teachers said they weren't sure how he'd do his first time. (Emily: "We thought he could go either way." Liz, the teacher: "Exactly!" They know him pretty well.) But he jumped in and was apparently a-OK.

Jack's version: "We rode on a bus like that one ... I was a little scared to jump in the water, but I jumped in, and then I was in the water swimming, and there was a big shark." "There was?" "Yeah! And he swum up and bit my toe!" "Now, I don't believe that." "Yeah!" "Really?" "No. Daddy, I was just making a joke." Then: "Do you know the Buddy system?" "Er, sure. Where you keep close to somebody else and they do with you?" "Yeah. My buddy was Casey. There was a swimming teacher, but he didn't get in the water. Just Miss Ruthie and Miss Lizzie."

Later, Jack showed us swimming on the living room rug. "C'mon, swim with me." And so we did.

Drawing

Jack's been drawing a lot lately, and it's starting to actually look like stuff. What was once random scrawls or dots now has shape. He drew something the other day that looked kind of like a tree. Emily was looking at it thinking that when Jack said, "It's a tree." I drew The Jungle Book characters on his board. Jack drew the elephant. It had kind of a triangular head, an eye, a bump for a nose. "I drew the elephant," he said.

Dancing

Jack dances around naked before and after his bath. Sometimes he does it before his bath, only wearing socks. Not so much dancing as just running around. I don't know when kids develop modesty or self-consciousness about their bodies. I hope for Jack that it doesn't happen for a long time.