As a part of his ongoing approach to life where he never does anything except his own way and in his own time, Lex has not allowed me to teach him to swim. This has been really bothersome to me because we are around water so often. Besides wanting my kids to enjoy swimming, I want them to be safe around water. All the rest were open to learning basic floating, diving, moving through the water sort of skills. Lex wouldn't cooperate at all. I even talked to him about doing swim lessons with someone else last year, and he wasn't interested. He just told me he already knew how to swim. (A total lie.) I wasn't going to waste the money to try to get him to participate in something he was so adamant against. I also didn't want to fight about it because he has been nervous about having his head anywhere near water since he was an infant. I only washed his hair approximately five times in the first two years of his life because each time I did it it traumatized both of us. So, I didn't push the swimming things; I don't want him to dislike or be afraid of the water.
His preschool teacher this year teaches swim lessons in the summer and he finally agreed to do it. He was even a little bit excited about it, because this summer he actually wants to keep up with the older boys and all their water adventures and he can't quite do it. After the first day he wasn't too enthusiastic about going back because they had to practice putting their faces in the water. He did though. And although he was still a bit hesitant about the strokes and skills that involve that, he made a lot of progress. I like that his teacher also focused a lot on water safety, too. He likes learning things like that and he does remember and follow that sort of instruction. (When it isn't coming from me.)
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