The Y Pool and the Sun Pool

Today Casey jumped off the wall of the pool at the Y and turned around to swim to the edge. It was major progress. We've promised Casey that once he can do it, we'll buy him a Transformer. A giant, $40 transformer that makes noise and lights up. It's been quite an incentive.

I think I wrote several months ago about the day Casey fell into the deep end of the pool at a classmate's pool party. Within a few minutes, he calmed himself enough to swim to the edge and get himself out of danger. But not before flailing about for a bit. He was fine during swim lessons for the next couple weeks, then suddenly one day after going into the deep end, he decided he didn't like swimming anymore. At all. In fact, he'd work himself into such a frenzy that he literally gave himself a fever. Two weeks in a row. And only on swim days.

So we decided to stop pushing him into swimming. But our dilemma was that Marcie still wanted to attend swim lessons, and she's so young she has to participate in a parent-child class. So then what to do with Casey? Well, he refused to get into the pool. But then eventually we coaxed him back in by promising he could stay with Jason and Marcie. And he has. Real progress occurred in July when he discovered that his cousin Joey (18 months his junior) can swim by himself. Under water. And so can Lucas, who is only 6 months older than Marcie.

For a while, he just wanted to go in the "sun pool," which is apparently the name he gave my parents' pool. In North Carolina. A bit too far to travel for a quick swim. But now there seems to be some real progress. Thankfully, though, he seems to be overcoming his fear. In tiny steps. He's remained with Jason and Marcie this summer. And he may be ready to return to his own class soon. We're hopeful. It's a good thing he's so competitive.

Casey has also been keeping busy this summer by playing soccer on an indoor soccer team, by participating in music class, by taking a P.E. class at school, and by taking a reading/tutoring class (this evening, he was actually attempting to sound. out. words. I was so proud and impressed). But I digress.

I think one of the reasons he dislikes the Y pool is the attitude of the swim teachers. When he happily cheers about and shouts hello, the high-school-aged boys just give their I'm-too-cool-to-actually-make-any-effort head nods in Casey's direction. Talk about a turn-off. Though I suppose I should be grateful we don't have the swim coach Casey's cousin had the pleasure of experiencing this summer. On the way to the pool in San Francisco (I think it was a Y pool), one of the counselors jokingly said to my five year old nephew, "Just watch out for the sharks." Who says that to a five year old? Geez.