Swim

One of Matt's favourite activity of the week has been his swimming lessons. He starts squealing with delight when he sees me with his swimming costume, and starts signing "swim" over and over. In the car on the way to the lesson he loves practicing his blowing and swimming arm movements.

The lessons are held in a lovely indoor, heated pool so we have been able to keep going despite the onset of winter. This week was the last lesson of the season, and fortunately Lloyd was able to take some time out of work to join us. Thus freeing me up to take some photos.

Usually there are more kids but this time the others were absent so Matt had all the attention from teacher Laurelle. During the session the temperature outside the pool room dropped as the rain came down resulting in lots of steam inside - taking photos became a challenge but you can still see what Matt is up to desite the fog.

The kids get to play on a shallow step for the first part of the lesson - learning to walk in the water and reach down to find all the fun toys that are on the step.

All the activities are done to music and song which really appeals to Matt. Through the song actions the kids learn basic swimming strokes.

Matt and dad blowing bubbles

Through more songs Matt learns to hold on to the edge and also more blowing.

This sequence of photos shows Lloyd about to submerge Matt under the water and Matt coming up reaching for the fish toy on the side of the pool. Matt is very comfortable with being underwater, and has learnt to hold his breathe.

Matt loves the funky toys that are used to motivate him to move along the side of the pool. Here he has used his hands to "monkey walk" from Laurelle to Lloyd - to get the toys.

The pool noodle helps Matt to float a bit more independently and encourages him to kick to move forward. Here he has fun collecting the balls and depositing them in the basket.

Matt's swimming will be put on hold a little bit as his little brother or sister is likely to be born when his lessons are due to start again in September. But as soon as I am well enough to take him again, we will be back in the pool. It is such a joy to watch in the water, we would hate to deprive him of this pleasure for too long.