Swim Team

Today we started something new with swim. Nicco had reached a plateau where he wasn't really showing much improvement in his swim lessons. The company where he has his lessons also does a swim team and kids can join when they are 5. One of the skill requirements is that they are able to swim a whole lap without assistance. I asked his swim teachers if they thought he would be ready for that, and they assured me that he would have no problem.

So now, instead of 1/2 hour lessons twice a week, we have 1 hour workouts 3 times a week. Then in June and July, there are morning and afternoon practices, plus competition on Saturdays.

We arrived at the pool and introduced ourselves to Mr. Shane, who wasted no time getting Nicco into the routine. They start out doing stretches, push-ups, and flutter kicks:

Nicco didn't like the stretching part. I think I'll pull out the Wii fit and work on some yoga and push- ups with him.

Then Mr. Shane assigned the kids to lanes and told them to swim 4 laps freestyle to warm up. Yep, my little 5 year old boy, whose main skill requirement was that he could swim ONE lap, had to swim 4 laps. For a warm up. And he did it. My goodness. He struggled a little, but he did it. Then, after resting for about 10 seconds, Mr. Shane gave the kids kickboards and said "4 laps of flutter kicks. GO!" Part of me wanted to just grab my little boy and pull him out, and maybe have him go back to regular lessons and start this serious stuff next year. The other part of me knows that he has to do hard things to get better. After 4 laps of freestyle and 4 laps of flutter kicks, they got another 30 second break and did two more sets of 2 laps of freestyle. They got a little break while Mr. Shane showed them the proper butterfly form, then back to kicks and freestyle. I lost count, but I know he did at least 12 laps, and I think it may have even been as many as 16. They had about 15 minutes of fun time, but since Nicco was the littlest and the newest, Mr. Shane worked with just him while the other kids played.

His form is far from perfect and he had to take some breaks in some of those laps, but I was impressed and amazed that he stuck with it without whining or complaining.

I expected him to come home and want to snuggle, but his dad was already home, so they teased and played a while. However, when he finally stopped moving for 2 minutes to sit down to dinner, he could barely keep his eyes open. When I tucked him in, he was too tired to even drink his sippy. I think it will be a good, long sleep for him tonight!