July Swim Lessons

Here we are in August and I've finally got a July post for you...
We actually spent most of July at home. We visited the library for books and movies, had a couple playdates, took swimming lessons and just played at home. The kids favorite games these days are Barbies/pirates (they seemed to have melded the two likes into one game), coloring and 'practicing' for school (MC has been working on addition and subtraction and Nate has been working on his letters and shapes.), nerf shooting, and the timeless classic, 'house.' The two of them have endless imaginations so I can hardly keep up.

I mentioned we took swimming lessons in July and they both made tremendous progress. You can tell just how much based on these before and after video clips.

This is day one for MariCagle. She picked up the crawl stroke quickly but she was having trouble getting the timing right on the breathing.


This is MariCagle at the end of her two weeks of lessons. She's got the timing down and does the crawl with the best of them. She also began learning the back stroke. But her favorite thing she learned was to go down to the bottom of the pool to retrieve toys. Check it out...






Nate started lessons with no desire to put his face in the water at all; he was even hesitant to blow bubbles with just his mouth in the water. You can see from this first day footage that he is quite the charmer talking incessantly with his teachers and wrapping those arms around their neck. But by the end of the week he had become quite comfortable in the water. He was highly motivated thanks to the strong desire to complete his previously mentioned collection of KungFu Panda figurines. Brandon found the much coveted Po (the Panda himself) as well as the bad guy, Tai Lung, on ebay and ordered them for the kids. We told Nate he could have them as long as he listened to his teachers and tried all of the things they asked him to try. I couldn't believe how it worked. He was willing to do anything they asked and as a result overcame his fear of the water. See for yourself...


I think he made the biggest improvements. He just loves swimming now, just like his big sister. Now my biggest worry is his lack of fear in the water! I guess a mother is never satisfied! :)

They both got ribbons for completing the lessons. They were very proud swimmers!

Coming up....the start of First Grade and Pre-K and MariCagle's 6th birthday!!