A first swimming lesson

Jonah and Noah were excited to see Gong gong. And after everything else was done, and naps had been taken (we had a very early flight.... with Hulk Hogan by the way) and the sun had gone low enough on the horizon to not be a brutal fiery thing to hide from, cowering in the shadows and AC... then it was time to go swimming.

"Swimming yay I like swimming! I like swimming sooooo much!" Jonah said galloping around the condo.

They were dressed in armor of floatable devices and he headed down. I was pretty nervous because of Jonah's excitement, but once it was three adults to two children it was okay.


And then Jonah tried to get out of his floatable inner tube.

As he hoisted himself over and I admonished "No!"
Gong Gong said, "Don't worry he can't get out of that."

Jonah hadn't gotten out of it, but I could see success would soon be his. He had, two years ago, tipped out of another inner tube into the water head first. I must have fished him out in perhaps less than a second. But I remember that moment like it was an extremely long time.

 I got to Jonah.

"I want to get out and do swimming MYself." He said.

I stripped him of floaty devices. Noah looked on commenting on this and that. Luckily, not interested in this lesson at all. But of course I would rather work with Noah on this than Jonah, but Noah is too afraid so far.

Jonah tried to jump right in without hesitation. Not into my arms.

"Put your hands up put your hand UP!" he yelled at me when I tried to hold him. I explained to him that we weren't doing anything until we learned the concept of holding our breath underwater.... that you cannot take a deep breath when you are in the water.

We held on to the side and practiced breathing in and then blowing bubbles under water.
I said to blow the air bubbles out of your nose, but I this morning when I went for a swim I also blew out of my mouth. So maybe that doesn't matter. (I think I could benefit from some real swim lessons as well.)

I breathed in above and then went under up to my eyes, so that I could still keep an eye on Jonah. I was trying to get him to do the same thing. But after a couple of times of going close to (but not under) the water and blowing on it like he was cooling of his tea at Yum Cha (dim sum) he provlaimed, "Okay now let's go swimming!" and tried to jump in again. Pretty much I would hold his hands and he would jump in and THEN take a deep breath, so I was always pulling him up at the last second so that breath wouldn't happen underwater.

"Just let him do it." said Grace.

I insisted that she come over and help me if she was going to give advice.

Eventually we made it to a step where Jonah was on his tippy toes, and then it was time to go in.

"I can swim mommy. Baba gave me a lesson." he told Grace as they went upstairs.