Swimming Lessons

Claire’s work had a minor emergency, enough for her to have to go in for the afternoon, so I booked a half-day off work to look after Jack. Although, this wasn’t a normal ‘looking after Jack-day’, as Claire had already planned on taking Jack to the start of the new season’s swimming lessons.

I will admit, I really wasn’t looking forward to this – the thought of being the only bloke very-nearly-naked in a pool with a load of mums and their babies, and singing songs to do anything, much like the cast of Grease. Hmmm.

Anyway, we went, although that was a bit close. Jack got really upset around 15:30 ish and I hadn’t managed to get any food into him, nor very much booby-juice, which turned out, that he was just tired. He needed to sleep and get to it quick-style. I got him into the car at 16:00, to make the 15 minute journey to Huntingdon, to be there for 17:00 – yes, an hour to do a quarter-hour journey, but this was tactical; I spoke to Claire and she said about taking him earlier and leaving him to sleep in the car before going into the pool. Good plan, worked like a charm, as Jack was out-cold just after getting out of town, and so I managed to drive around a bit, get fuel, and find the place – all of this, and was still early, which was good.

After having to chuck a woman and her baby out of the men’s changing room, I got to work in getting Jack into his ‘swim-nappy’ – this is basically a nappy that you pull-on like pants, but is all nappy-like everywhere else. Out of the packet, I got the one with a picture of Nemo on it, as he was going swimming and all. (I did search online for a photo of a Nemo swim-nappy, but to no avail – sorry.)

I had to put Jack back into his car-seat, that I took in with us, as otherwise I’d never be able to get changed myself, as the little blighter has learnt to crawl…!

The session was a half-hour swimming lesson for the child, but it was probably just as much of a lesson for the mums/dads, as it as least showed me that Jack could be dunked and dipped in the water, and not to be molly-cuddled and protected like your instincts tell you to do.

We stood on the side of the pool waiting for the previous group to finish, and I was starting to wonder what I have let myself in for; in the pool was a lady, dressed in a wet-suit, leading the group of about 6 or 7 mums (no blokes) and their babies, some of which who were very small. The pool itself wasn’t massive and is only 0.6m at it’s deepest but, as it’s part of a school for special needs children, it was really hot in there. And for a group of mums (and dads) like that, it was absolutely perfect. The lady was singing and splashing the water around, showing the mums what to do with their baby, demonstrating with a dummy baby that was curiously left to float in a worrying fashion when not needed.

At this point, some of the other mums came over and said hello, starting their conversations off with ‘Is that Jack..?’ It sounds like he’s a celebrity or something, but the truth was that they are mums that were at last season’s sessions with Claire and had remembered him, but even that was nice.

The previous group faded out of the water and the mums in our group wasted no time in getting in. I soon followed and went for the back corner of the pool, towards the deeper part, although I was crouching so that my head was out of the water to match the other mums! (I didn’t want to stand up straight and make myself even more noticeable!!)

The lady in the wet-suit brought us into a circle and sang a song, which then, when repeated, went around each child in the group, saying hello and welcome to the group. A bit weird, but was quite nice in that it welcomed each child in turn, but also spent a moment with the child seeing if he/she would dunk their head or blow bubbles in the water, etc. I could repeat the words to it off the top of my head, as it’s one of those that just seem to lodge themselves in your mind and find myself reciting it even now..! Bah!

Once the circle-work was over, everybody dissipated to their own little area of the pool and then it seemed like it was only really Jack and myself in there, occasionally listening to the new instruction from the lady in the suit. There was a bit of swooshing Jack around the pool in my arms to a song, ending with you having to kiss and praise him for doing so well, to which he looked at me as if to say ‘yeah, what about it, dad?’.

She broke out the funky-looking purple and yellow floats, and got us to sit our babies on them and drive them across the water in speed-boat style, as well as lay them on the float on their bellies and get them to paddle in a body-board style. She then also tried to get the mums (and me) to lay the float on the side of the pool, sit the baby on top and then yank the float into the water, submerging the baby. Yeah… it was only really me that tried that one, and even then, I was a bit cautious about actually ‘dunking’ the poor child, although I don’t know why – maybe I’m worried that he hasn’t learnt to stop breathing under water or something!

A bit more singing and splashing later, and she’s getting us to teach our babies how to hold onto the rail around the pool, and then how to climb safely out of a pool, ending up laying on the deck in line with the pool edge. He’s probably a bit young to worry about doing this, as at 7 months old, there’s not a lot of chance of him being far from one of us!

She brought us into the centre of the pool again in a circle style and thanked us for coming along this week, which is when I noticed the next group on the pool-side waiting to get in and have their lesson. Admittedly, in their group, there was a few more blokes than in mine!

But in all, Jack was really good. He didn’t cry or moan at all throughout the half-hour session, so he obviously liked it. And so did I, it was a good couple of hours spent, even if he did cry half the way home!

I’m glad, though, that Claire had booked him in for these lessons – Claire used to swim a lot when she was younger, but even so, getting Jack in the water when he is young has got to be good for him, by way of exercise and all that for when he’s older. I didn’t spend that much time when I was young playing in swimming pools – I can swim, but I don’t really get excited about swimming length after length, or anything like that!