I don’t remember learning how to swim, but then again, I don’t remember not knowing how to swim either. I’ve always been comfortable around water, I grew up with a pool and then moved into a house on a lake, but my swimming skills are far from professional! I knew long before I became a parent that I wanted my kids to not simply be comfortable in the water, but to be confident!
Living in Chicago, the Lake Michigan temperatures are not often conducive to swimming, and residential pools are hard to come by. This is where Goldfish Swim School came into play; when Palmer was just over four months we decided to enroll her in the Mini 1 lessons, and much to our relief, she LOVED it! We attended lessons for several months, and sadly made the decision to take a break from our Friday evening swim dates shortly after I found out we were having another baby (Kedzie).
LOOK at that squish – this is Palmer at one of her first Goldfish lessons (February 2017) 
Luke and Palmer 
SO happy!
Once Kedzie arrived and we settled into a new routine, we decided we should get Palmer back in the pool! Friends of ours suggested we take a class through the park district, and we tried, but the insanely large class size made for a student to teacher ratio I wasn’t comfortable with. The class size, coupled with the fact that the only time offered was Saturday mornings, led to us only attending four sessions in the three months we were enrolled.
We knew we didn’t want to keep Palmer away from the water for long, and we knew we wanted to get her back to swimming at Goldfish, but we decided to wait until Kedzie was old enough to attend lessons as well. Then life got in the way and we didn’t get the girls enrolled until Kedzie was just over one. (I already imagine the day Kedz will guilt me with, “You started Palmer in lessons waaayyyy before me.”) In February we began taking the girls to Goldfish Swim School in Roscoe Village. I was given the option to enroll Palmer in the Mini 2 class (parent accompanies the child) which Kedzie would be in, or bump her up to the Mini 3 (child swims with their coach – no parent in the pool).
fish out of water
I decided Palmer had enough practice with the Mini 2 activities, and that the Mini 3 would be better for her growth. What I didn’t anticipate was it being so difficult to get her into the pool. To be honest, I am not sure she even touched the water during the first lesson. I felt awful. Here we were doing something that she had historically loved and she was in hysterics begging me not to leave her and insisting she didn’t want to swim. I didn’t know what to do – on the one hand I knew if she got in the pool she would love it, but on the other, this was my baby crying and reaching out for me. Ultimately I sat on the side of the pool and consistently urged Palmer to sit and observe if she wasn’t going to participate.
Now I would be completely remiss if I didn’t highlight right here and now that every member of the staff was so willing to help. No one made me feel judged, and in fact everyone assured me this was completely normal. When I spoke to the pool supervisor, Andrew, I asked if I should just walk away or what the best way was to handle the situation. He offered the insight that this was completely normal for week one, and perhaps the following week it would be best if I dropped Palmer off and then got out of her line of sight.
The following week, I took Andrew’s advice (and sweetened the deal with an ice cream bribe, because #momlife,) and Palmer did so much better! She has continued to progress week-over-week, she asks me every day if she is going to see Pedro (her coach). What’s more? Just this last week when I picked her up, Pedro shared that she executed on every task he gave her during the class!
testing the waters
If you would have asked me prior to our return to the pool, I would have said I was more anxious about how Kedzie’s experience would go than Palmer’s. Having never taken formal lessons, and never having been in an indoor pool, I had no idea what Kedz’s reaction would be to the classroom environment. However, her Mini 2 experience has been completely positive! While she is not as advanced as some of the other fish and is unable to complete all of the tasks, we’re modifying them to what she is capable of, and she is just happy to be in the water! In the 8 weeks Kedz has been taking lessons, we’ve already noticed:
- Her kicks are stronger
- She’s excellent at cleaning up (a skill we’re hoping will transfer outside of the pool)
- She has less angst about floating on her back
all-in-all it’s a splashing good time
We’re so happy to be back in the pool, and love that Goldfish is our swim home! The girls look forward to their lessons every week, and Palmer is borderline obsessed with her Goldfish ribbon collection – she insists upon showing it off to anyone who visits!
We’re so excited to continue to watch our girls progress in the pool, and can’t wait to see them in the lake this summer!
Thank you Goldfish Swim School for sponsoring this post.