Tuesday, June 8, 2010

swim safety lesson


i've been getting nervous about living by all this water here in south florida so i've been doing "swim lessons" with pace every day in our pool. he's been doing really well (more videos of that to come later) and LOVES swimming. last night we decided to have a family lesson on pool safety. the main goal of the lesson was to help pace know what to do if he accidently fell in to a pool. he does really well swimming around with me in the water, but i was worried he'd panic if he fell in with his clothes on and everything without me there. i had all the other kids get dressed in real clothes and shoes and pretend to fall in the pool, then turn around and grab the side and go back to the steps. when it was pace's turn to "fall in" i got him dressed in clothes and a diaper and flip flops and helped him fall in to the pool. he was very pleased that he remembered everything he was supposed to do. he watched this video of it about 100 times today. the next water-safety step is getting him to be able to go from swimming on his stomach to floating on his back--he can almost do it, but it needs a little fine-tuning. anyway, that was a long explanation for a short video, but i promised pace i would put it on the blog and write all about it. he's standing right by me waiting for me to finish so he can watch the video again.

9 comments:

Rochelle said...

Wow. I'm so impressed!

R said...

What a great idea!

S. Fisher said...

Smart woman! I am glad you shared that. And tell Pace he is awesome!!!

Penny said...

I totally showed this to Hadley and said, "See - Pace gets in the water without screaming, so should you!" We'll see if that works.

Wish you could come over and teach her too.

moranews said...

What a great idea, and such a good swimmer. I'm impressed that he stayed so calm and just did what he was taught! Way to go, Pace!

Ellie said...

Emily wants to watch it 100 times, too. I love that you had all the girls do ti first to show him how. You're still the best mom I know!

Diane said...

Awesome. I know I'm more sensitive to water safety because of all those lifeguard years. I'm always on alert around the water. This is a fabulous idea. Watching it over and over is a great reinforcement.

Joanne said...

That is such a good idea!! I am so impressed with his skills - I need to have Lizza watch it to put her to shame (she decided that this summer she is going to be terrified of swimming). Have you seen the videos of the little baby in the baby-safety-swimming videos? It always makes me want to teach my little tiny kids, (that and cry), but I've never done it yet.

Betsy said...

So cute! He did such a good job. I love that he was waiting next to you while you blogged! Such a great mom!