2017 Life Logs, Day 186: First Day of Swim Lessons
Date: Wednesday, July 05, 2017
Weather: Sunny; High 78, Low 59 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today was the first day of swim lessons for Sam and Jonah. Since the boys spent the night with me, we had breakfast on the deck before heading to swim lessons.
These lessons are provided at a very low cost by the town of Falmouth at various town beaches. After a lot of discussion, Sam and Jonah both voted for lessons at Falmouth Heights Beach which is just a half mile walk from here. Ollie is still too young to participate, but we go to the beach and play while the ‘big’ boys have their lessons. Sam’s group meets at 10 am and Jonah’s at 10:30. Neither boy is full vested in this experience, but I am hoping to keep them involved so they will become better swimmers by summer’s end. Sam can swim but needs to work on style. Jonah has always been reluctant to jump in the water as he says it hurts his ears, so we have this obstacle to mount. He has had ear tubes implanted twice due to ear infections starting when he was just a baby. And this is the reason for his reluctance. I was so excited today when I met his instructor for this summer, Michael.
He is a high school or college student who is obviously fun-loving and very caring. He encouraged Jonah, but didn’t push. His assistant is Lauren, and she, too, spent time teaching Jonah skills. Lessons for us will end on July 20 as Sam and Jonah are signed up for a fort-building camp at Falmouth Academy the last week of July, followed by a week of soccer camp the first of August. So we have to give our best effort to swimming in the next two weeks. I was extremely proud of both Sam and Jonah today because they gave their all even though they were initially reluctant to participate.
I purchased white boards to use for Camp Oma planning and the boys and I had our first official ‘meeting’ this morning. At these meetings, we will jointly make decisions on what activities we will participate in each week. I also gave them their summer journals this afternoon and they jumped right into recording their fireworks experience from last night. They had already decided to use one of the two planning white boards to draw about their experiences, so transferring to the journals was an easy process.
So—enthusiastically making group decisions, swimming, writing, and drawing–I’ll call today a success.
Early tomorrow morning I head back to Bruce and Jane Woodin’s to try and get the first coat of varnish on Pooh’s teak before 10 am swim lessons. I’ll try to get the second coat at the end of the day tomorrow, but Friday looks like a no-go for varnishing. At this point, rain is forecast during the day. But better rain on Friday than on Saturday. Saturday morning is Jonah’s birthday party with friends. Jonah wanted to do climbing and zip lining at the Adventure Park at Heritage Gardens. Sam and four other friends will join him. Unfortunately, Ollie is also too young for this activity, so Ollie and I will visit Heritage Gardens while the others CLIMB and ZIP!
