Our awesome friends have the most amazing pool. Half of it is only 3ish feet. It’s PERFECT for teaching children to swim. I made a happy deal with my friend. Her kiddos try to live in the pool during the summer. She babysits a couple of littles and so she can’t take them swimming and she doesn’t like her kids to be unsupervised.

The deal was I could come over every day and do swim lessons with Kaylee and Regan as long as I also did lifeguard duty. So for over a month this summer we spent a couple of hours in the pool Monday – Friday. Man, oh MAN! The progress. The skills. The confidence.

Day one Kaylee would hardly put a toe in the water. When Gillian asked her to jump off the diving board Kaylee’s response was, “No. I’m too worried”

Gillian: Worried about what.

Kaylee: That I will drown and DIE! (It was not the first time she had uttered those words.)

Thankfully Gillian just shrugged her little shoulders and jumped and swam anyway.  Kaylee kept talking about drowning and dying and I was really worried that we would end up breaking Gillian and her fearless fish like self. But we didn’t. She kept being a little fish and showed Kaylee and Regan how fun the water can be.

Poor dude totally biffed it and gave himself a minor bloody nose. It kept him out of the pool for about ten minutes ant then he was back in. Diving, swimming, using his little legs and arms to shoot through the water like a shark.

I took all these photos the last day we swam before our family vacation. Our friends were leaving right after we got back, and then summer break was about done after that.

He was very upset to be out of the pool until the bleeding stopped.

Our little Monkey HATED the water at the start of our swim adventure. But by the last day she was ALL about the pool. She especially like putting swim goggles on. And the big boys were super helpful babysitting her (next to me while she was in her floatie) when I was working with Kaylee and Regan.Jodi’s kids are fish, and were great co teachers during swim lessons. They gave such great tips and words of encouragement. Especially for Kaylee. They really cheered her on.And just look at her GO! From not wanting her feet in the water to full on swimming in just over a month!She is swimming the width of the pool in the DEEP end. Gillian’s face says it all. We were all just SO proud of her for concurring her fears. No drowning and dying for this one. 😉

She first swam the width of the deep and them immediately wanted to swim the length. I’m not gonna lie. I was super nervous about her swimming the length. But she killed it. Swam until she could stand up! AMAZING!

They were all doing crazy jumps off the board into the pool I was laughing SO hard. I didn’t get nearly enough video.

After two hours of swimming we would come home shower up, get the baby down for a nap and climb into my bed for a movie. Because swimming in 110+ heat wears a person out.