June 30, 2006 - Friday
Harry and Jeremy started another summer session of "backyard pool" swimming lessons through the local YMCA today. It was at a different pool than last year, Aidan's in ground pool instead of Connor's above ground pool, but it kind of felt similar with Rip and his dad joining us again. Indeed, this first lesson could and should have really an uneventful occasion of happy water play and a little learning given how well everything went last year. And in many ways it was exactly that, particularly for Harry. Jeremy, on the other hand, started out a bit awkwardly.

I may be wrong about this, but I think that Jeremy finished last year's lessons wearing only two of the possible three floatation bubbles on his back. So, before they got into the pool, I strapped a two-bubble belt on both Harry and Jeremy, both eager and excited to get into the water. I mentioned to the new teacher, Cayly, that both had taken lessons before, but not since last fall. All seemed good. Then, as I walked back to my seat at the patio table, Cayly must have told the boys to line up on the stairs, then to jump into the water and perhaps to swim across the shallow end of the pool to her on the other side. I turned to sit just in time to boys lunging in the water, but also to see Jeremy's entire head go down under the water. Instinctually, I stood back up and started walking back toward the pool.

Of course, putting ones head underwater is fine, if not an important part of learning to swim. And I certainly don't think that Cayly, a short distance away on the other side of the deep end, should have or even could have noticed that anything was out of order. But, it was pretty clear to me that Jeremy would not so unabashedly have wished to start out this first lesson by doing it right away. I wasn't panicked as I walked back toward the shallow end, but I was certainly watching to see what Jeremy would do. Harry can touch the bottom of the shallow end in Aidan's pool and still keep his nose above the water, Jeremy, who's just a few inches shorter, cannot and I'm definitely betting that it surprised him to be in the water and sinking. By the time I got to the stairs he had rolled his head around trying to get and keep his face out of the water. I paused for a moment at the top of the steps, I guess hoping that I could talk him through it. After all, helping himself would go a whole lot further toward giving him confidence and helping him learn to swim than his dad walking into the pool with clothes on to pull him out. But by then, there was a clear note of panic in his face and the beginning cries of a small child. I was sure that he was not going to be able to move no matter what I said. I'd been there myself once.

I'm not sure how old I was, perhaps 10 or 11, but I can remember quite well a time when I was in a similar state. Perhaps at that age I wasn't as panicked as Jeremy would be at 4, knowing that lifeguards were all around, but I remember the disorientation and inability to save myself quite well. I was at a summer camp for a week and in the pond with my level of swimming class. My recollection is that I was in a more advanced class than perhaps I should have been because I had learned to do many of the strokes pretty well. Unfortunately, I hadn't learned to tread water. At the moment I was doing the intramural backstroke while the rest of the class watched from the dock and I might say that I was doing it just fine. But the thing about the intermural backstroke, the kind of breaststroke on your back, is that you can't see where you're going and it's going to be your head that hits the wall first. That had happened to me in a pool and I was leery of it happening again. So, as I got to where I thought was getting close to the dock my classmates were standing on, I took a peek to make sure I wasn't going to bang my head. Turns out I still had a ways to go, but turning to look had put me vertical in the deep water and I started to sink. I'm sure I must have been flailing my hands above the water, although I don't really know. Nor do I remember whether I sunk to the bottom and pushed back up. But I know it didn't take long for my teacher to have wrapped me up in her arm and swum with me back to the dock. As I got out of the water I tried to say, "I don't know how to tread water," but I don't think it mattered to anyone except me. Once on the dock it was pretty clear that I was fine and nobody needed to dwell on it, or to embarrass me any further.

The good thing about this incident with Jeremy is that after I walked into the water, lifted Jeremy's arm and dragged him to the stairs, I was able to show him that I must have been that he didn't have enough bubbles and that putting three on instead of two would make everything all right. And with that he was back in the water and seemed to be none the worse for the incident. In fact, it all happened so quickly that I'm betting that the other parents may not have even noticed that my shorts were wet.


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