A Lightbulb Moment

Addie has struggled with learning how to swim. We started lessons with her early on, but she had a traumatic experience with an instructor pushing her underwater that scared her and set us back years. She was afraid to put her face underwater, and no matter how many times we tried helping her- she wasn't having it.

But as a five-year-old, she was clearly behind in not having this important skill. So we decided to try fresh this summer with lessons at Northbrook because she liked taking them there last year. So here she is for lesson #1. It went well, and she made attempts to put her face under the water.

Then the Moores invited us to go with them to their pool on Memorial Day. We were in the baby pool when out the blue, Addie just STARTS SWIMMING! Yes- she was just going across the length of the baby pool- but she had her face under the water the whole time! It was a total lightbulb moment for her. She started doing it again and again and realized it was fun! And more importantly- not scary. Then we started giving her little tips on how to move her arms and legs and how to come up for a breath. It was so exciting to watch her face light up and her confidence grow. The sad part was that Brian missed it because he had to work that afternoon on budget stuff, but luckily I caught it on video. He couldn't believe it and was so proud of her. 

That afternoon at the Raleigh Country Club, Addie overcame her fear of the water and started swimming for the first time. At that time, I didn't know how quickly she would catch on and that she would eventually join the swim team. More to come on that! But I did know that she overcame a major hurdle that Memorial Day and that our girl was on her way to becoming a real swimmer. Hooray!