swimming

Took Jack swimming at the YMCA pool yesterday. He goes with his class each week; we don't take him enough.

Since he goes all the time, he felt he should tell me what to do and where to go. "There's a family changing room," he explained. "Don't go here, go here." And: "There are rooms for the boys and rooms for the girls."

We headed to the pool. "We go in that part over there. Here, come on," he said helpfully.

Jack went right over to get a floaty, which he wears around his chest. With that on, he's extremely comfortable in the water. So we swam about a bit with him in that. But, I wanted him to swim a little without it. We took it off, he was a little more nervous. But, with a barbell-like floaty, he was fine. That was pretty cool. He held it out in front of him, kicked with his feet, went from end to end.

I wanted him to jump in the water off the edge of the pool. He was wary. Don't you do this at school? I asked. He said, "Well, I did it once. And I got water in my eyes and my nose and my mouth and I cried." I said, well, it's just water. And I'll be right here. So he got up on the side of the pool and went to jump...but instead crouched down, sat and sort of slipped into the water instead.

So I brought out the big guns: McDonald's for lunch. So that worked. He got back out, got in crouch position, and asked to grab my fingers when he jumped (which is how he does it at school, evidently). He jumped, sunk in the water to his shoulders or so, bobbed up.

He was euphoric, his little face beaming with pride. "I did it!" he said. "I jumped in!" I gave him much praise. He did it again.

Then we put the floaty back on and swam around a bit. Another little boy, couple of years older probably, was playing. There was this huge floating ball, that they and I batted back and forth for a while. Eventually I just got out, and they played. I think Jack could have stayed in for an hour. Finally it was clear, after much swimming about, hitting the ball, and laughter, that he was getting cold/tired. I said it was time to go. Bye dude! the other kid said to Jack. "Bye!" Jack said.

As I dried Jack off, he made a funny, raspy voice. "This is my funny voice when I'm cold," he rasped with a big smile.

We went to McDonald's, and it was good.