Swimming

As some of you know the Netherlands is called that way for a reason. A lot of our land once was water and if things are going the way Al Gore predicted, about 80% of it will become water again.

In order to be as fully prepared as one can be (and not to be counting heads all the time when in a pool) i want the kids to have their swimming certificates before anything else.

After some initial hesitations (read; 2 yrs of watching the boys walk on the bottom, laught with their friends, pull themselves forward on the rope separating the bath whenever the teacher wasnot watching them, in short doing anything but swimming) Morten and Timo are doing pretty ok.
It's a pity Robbert and i first had to get stomach ulcers out of frustation of the above mentioned 2 year period, both boys somehow saw the light, and got their A, B and C certificate in 6 months!

Alas Caroline is something different.
Like the boys, i registered her when she turned 4 and a couple of months later, she was on the top of the waitinglist and could enter.
Now let me explain.
There are 6 area's in the pool one has to conquer. Let's call them bath 1 to 6.
Bath 1 is the swallow place children are playing in.
bath 2 is the swallow bath they learn to float and sort of swim with corks on.
bath 3 is the real works (the deep) but still with corks
and you can pretty much say they start to swim in 4.
Then all of a sudden they speed up the process because in 5 they learn how to do breast and back strokes, they dive, swim with their clothes on and lay still in the water for 20 seconds (don't ask)
This is all you need to know for your A diploma and then for B and C they do the same, but then more, in bath 6.

With normal children, each bath takes about 12 weeks
With normal children it takes them about a year and a half for their first (A) diploma.

So.
When we saw just before the summer holiday this year, that Caroline was still in bath 1, we realized something was wrong. Even the boys were not that slow.
And it was (wrong).
Because she cried and didn't want to do the things the teachers asked, and because the teacher had to look after 10 - 15 other little wankers, Caroline was more or less left to herself and -not minding this one little bit- happily played herself through her 45 minute lesson.

Having waisted serious money on bath 1 we decided to chill for a couple of months and put her back on when she had turned 5.
Which was last Octobre.
And seriously I don't know what caused it but for all crying parents out there; there is hope.
For she started to do assignments at school.
She said goodmorning to the teacher (before i had to rip her from my legs and run out as fast as i could) and sat at her table.

But most important for this post; she started to seriously swim.
Well..... you could tell her intentions were good.
That's why about a month ago she progressed onto bath 2.

Now Robbert is not one for patience.
So 2 weeks ago he decided to take her (and her brothers) to the pool and help her out a bit.
When she came home she proudly declared she could float and swim on her back without corks on.
See. Robbert did remember she was in the shallow part.
But he forgot she still needed corks.
He did say he was a bit disappointed at her progression in the beginning but after about 10 minutes she got the hang of it and didn't sink anymore.

It gets even better.

These last days we have been away to a hotel in the middle of nowhere. (read East Nederland)
Where there was this pool.
But the pool didn't have a shallow childrens section.
So.
She can swim without corks in the deep now.


ps; Robbert can be booked for private lessons. Not particularly suited for feable-hearted children. Or parents.