Soccer and swimming

Saturdays we have soccer lessons first thing in the morning, and then swimming lessons in the afternoon. Soccer is at Lil' Kickers at Magnuson Park, indoors thank goodness. Jordan is crazy about soccer and has gained quite a bit of skill. Here he is during drills with his current class and his coach, Aubrey.

Class is a little less than an hour, about half drills and half scrimmage. Jordan's is the first level where they actually play something a lot like soccer, and Jordan could not be more proud. The atmosphere is very friendly, with a big emphasis on being a good teammate and having fun. The field Jordan plays on is one of about twelve in the same giant hall, each one-quarter of a full soccer field. The hall is a converted airplane hangar - Magnuson used to be a military base. Other buildings host mountaineering clubs, theater groups, and kayaking organizations. Talk about beating the swords into ploughshares. 

Aaron tried a soccer class for a while, but he was never really on board. He prefers to doodle around with whatever he can find. 

There's a break in the middle of the day (today we had a painter over to check out the kitchen), and then in the afternoon, we have swimming. This is over at the Mercer Island JCC, where Jordan goes to summer camp. We have to be members anyway as long as Aaron is in JCC preschool, so we may as well use the pool. It's never crowded.

Swimming lessons are with the magical Melissa, recommended to us by friends whose kids were similarly cautious in the water. Jordan has absolutely thrived with her. He is now crawls several strokes and is learning side breathing. He also delights in horsing around underwater, which is a huge change for him. He found out today that it's almost impossible for him to swim down to the bottom of the pool, even where it's only three feet deep, because he's just too buoyant. He found this out by trying about a hundred times.

Here are a couple little movies of him trying to 1. crawl with giant arm strokes, 2. keep his arms pointed out in front of him between strokes, 3. keep his head down in the water with his chin tucked, and 5. after three strokes, turn on his side to breathe. It's a lot to coordinate.

Swimming is incredibly symbolic for Jordan. He was terrified of it, and now he can do it. It means to him that things that are terrifying might actually be not only possible, but awesome. He also recognizes that part of what had been getting in the way before was his own anxiety. He says, "I realized that when something is scary and I can't do it, sometimes if I can relax, I can do it." Is that a life lesson or what?