The Green Band

In addition to all the fun adventures I took the boys on this summer I also had them in swim lessons. The Y really has an awesome learn to swim program that teaches kids to be safe and confident in and around the water.

I’m ashamed to admit that at six years old Cameron still couldn’t swim. With our summers being spent waiting for Bill to be able to have some fun with us we just never took the time to get Cameron in lessons. Why learn to swim if we’re never going swimming was my thought.

This year the boys spent six weeks learning to swim. For Logan it was more getting used to being in the water than actually learning to swim. Cameron on the other hand went from sinking like a stone in the pool to swimming like a little fish in a matter of four weeks.

So proud to be able to swim without Mommy or Daddy!

The Y has a wrist band system for kids in the pool so the lifeguards know that abilities of the kids swimming. A red band is for the kids who can’t swim at all and those kids need to have a parent with them in the water. Then the yellow band is for the kids who can swim but can’t swim a whole lap and can’t tread water for long. Those kids also need a parent near by. The green wrist band is for the good swimmers and they’re allowed in the pool without a parent.

The kids are tested to see where they fall and are issued a band accordingly.

In four weeks Cameron went from a red band to a green one, he didn’t even bother with the yellow band. I don’t think he’s ever been so proud of himself and rightfully so.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so proud. I was working the night he got his green band and when he came running to the window holding up his little arm to show me I had to choke back the tears.

This has been the best summer ever in so many ways.

Did your kids have an extra special accomplishment this summer? Please share with the rest of us.

I feel kind of bad for my kids. Because of Bill’s job and the demands of the summertime we never go places like the pool or the beach. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with taking them places but taking them both to water still scares the hell out of me.

At six years old Cameron can hardly swim. Sure, he’s got all the confidence in the world but he’s lacking in the skills department. He loves the water and has confidence, in my book that’s a recipe for disaster.

Poor little Logan will be four years old and is just now taking his first swim lessons.

I think that my own inability to swim has made it ok for me to not get the kids swimming. Not that it is ok, but in my mind it’s kind of like, “Well I can’t swim so it’s no big deal that they can’t.” The best I can do is keep myself alive until help comes. I guess if it meant saving one of the boys I could probably pull it off, I know the basics.

Part of The Summer of Mommyland was to get out of the comfort zone and not just for me, for the boys too. They can’t swim…This will be the summer they learn!

For the better part of the past four weeks both of the boys have been taking daily swim lessons. Monday through Thursday we spend an hour or so watching them learn how to not drown.

I have to give them both credit, they have improved ten fold in the short amount of time they’ve been going. Cameron can actually swim. He doesn’t have the endurance yet and the fact that he can’t even touch in the shallow end means he has to work harder than the other kids but he’s getting it.

Logan cried the first few lessons and really wanted nothing to do with swimming and he is now my little fishie. He’s not as confident as his older brother but he’s getting more comfortable in the water. For a kid who has hardly spent anytime in water outside of the bathtub, he doing an amazing job.

Do your kids like to swim? Were they late bloomers like mine?