Swimming Lessons

Jul 16
Amy

Every summer the City of Irrigon (maybe the Parks Department) arranges a bus and a specific number of openings for swimming lessons at the Hermiston Aquatic Center.  The lessons are free to Irrigon students, and are given out based on a first come-first served basis.  In addition to paying for them to take lessons, we have taken advantage of this opportunity every year we’ve lived here.  The girls have a great time, and they’re becoming such good strong swimmers!  They just finished up their session through the City, and we’re getting ready for their next two-week session. 

Harley and Katelyn are being moved up to the highest level of lessons for their next two weeks.  They both have really worked hard to learn all they could.

  
 
 

I was a swimmer all through elementary school, junior high, and part of high school.  I was always on the city swim team (when I didn’t have a cast on some part of my body anyway), and I was pretty good.  I love to swim, and I love that my girls are water babies and love to be in the water, too.

I have a very hard time watching Reagan swim because she struggles.  Swimming is not coming easily for her like it did with the other three girls.  When she gets her arms to move correctly, her legs stop, and vise versa.  It is hard for me to see that she is having such a difficult time, and I have to remind myself that she is a different person from her sisters.  She learns differently, she expresses herself differently, and she thinks differently.  Unfortunately, she seems to have been blessed (read: cursed) with my coordination – or lack thereof – and just can’t make her brain think about two different things at once.

 

I know that at some point, probably very unexpectedly, the swimming will “click” and she will be able to manage just fine.  Until then, I will have to watch her struggle, even though I hate it, and I will be proud of how hard she tries and the improvements she makes.