“If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try Try Again.”

To say that Tenley didn’t succeed at the swim lessons she took in the summer of 2007 would be an understatement. We set her up for success, to be sure: it was a “parent and me” class taken with her favorite person in all the world- Daddy, it was only once a week (for 6 weeks), and they were taking it with best buddy Jaxon and his dad. Perfect recipe, right? Not so much. Ten & Jax spent 6 weeks velcroed to their dads screaming bloody murder while the other kids happily blew bubbles and learned to float. The experience was so bad, that Jeff vowed he would “never ever under any circumstances do that ever again!!”

So last year I just threw the summer activity guide away without even mentioning it….but I spent allll year telling her, “ Next year, you will take swimming lessons all summer and you will learn to swim!”

It comes down to this: Ten doesn’t like getting her head & face wet. She loves the pool, or a bath or shower- but there’s always drama if you get her head/face wet , or say try to rinse her hair.
So today, the time came for me to make good on my promise/threat. We signed up last week, and at 6:30 we tried again. I reminded her to listen to her coaches and that they would keep her safe.

She got right in. Coach Meghan said “blow bubbles”- she blew bubbles. Coach Brit took everyone down the side of the pool to kick- she went down the wall and kicked.

Then Coach Meghan said “ Ok everybody! Now we’re going to float on our faces!” I took a deep breath- the kind Ten needed to. I braced myself internally- when the screaming began, I was going to be kind but firm: she was not going to be allowed to get out. She still looked calm. Corbin, Alice and Mailia took their turns. Coach Meghan held out her hands to Tenley….
…who without a second thought went right to her, took a big breath, plugged her nose, and face planted in the water. She came up giggling. WTF? Yep. Floated on her back, on her face, dove under to get a diving wand off the bottom step, and jumped in and dog paddled back to the steps 3 times.

She got out shivering and pronounced swimming lessons “fun”, and was overjoyed to learn that she got to do it again every day for the next 4 weeks.

We’ll see if she still feels that way at the end of the week…but here’s to success!!