Dear Mom and Dad, Today Was My Very First Swimming Lesson

Dear Mom and Dad, 

Today was my very first swimming lesson with Miss Dayna. Thank you for signing me up for these lessons. I am very grateful and I am going to have so much fun. I know that today, I may not have seemed or sounded very grateful and I was a little skeptical about the whole “having fun” part but Miss Dayna told me that she is going to help me to be a REAL swimmer and she is going to teach me all the things that I need to know to keep me safe in the water. That’s so cool right??

When you picked Miss Dayna to be my teacher, I bet you knew that she is really good at teaching swimming lessons. But did you know this?? She cares about me sooooooooo much!! She told me that today.

Did you see us do all our work?? First, I had to sit on my bottom and put my hands on my lap and wait my turn. That’s important to keep me safe. Then we did back floats. Phew!! That was kinda hard. I was really worried that Miss Dayna was going to let me go and I would fall in the water. But you know what, she told me that she wouldn’t let me go and SHE DIDN’T. And then did you see me!! I was floating with her helping me. She was holding me really tight and I kinda didn’t really love doing the back float but I did it and Miss Dayna was so proud of me. She told me that too. Were you so proud?? I did big kid swimming on my very first day.

I know that I tried to be the boss of Miss Dayna today and I may have yelled at her a little bit. Just so you know, she wasn’t mad at me for doing that. I was just having a bit of a hard time because I like to be in control of my own self, especially when a new person is asking me to do new things that were kinda hard and I was in a new place. All those things were happening at the same time and the only thing I could think of to do was yell and I may have cried a little bit too.

Miss Dayna told me that this is all OK. She said that I wasn’t the first kid to do it and I won’t be the last and then she laughed a little. I wasn’t in the mood to laugh with her but she seemed OK with that too.  She told me that sometimes she is going to ask me to do hard things like back floats or blowing bubbles and jumping in the pool, but that we are a great team and we will do all this work together.  

I know that you had to sit a little bit away from my class today, so you couldn’t hear all the things that Miss Dayna and I were talking about. Oh yeah, by the way, Miss Dayna told me that when you guys start acting better, you’ll be able to come and sit closer to watch me swim. That Miss Dayna is so crazy…it was me being loud and crying today, not you. LOL.  

Sometimes Miss Dayna was talking about silly things like eating chocolate cake for dinner and telling me that she has MAGIC fish and mermaids in her pool. I don’t think that’s true but I don’t want to tell Miss Dayna that and ruin magic for her. She said that we are going to learn things about each other because that’s what friends do. Maybe one day Miss Dayna will be my best friend. I bet that would make her heart happy.

Another thing she told me was that I can trust her because she ALWAYS keeps her promise. I didn’t tell her this, but I am going to need a little bit of time with her to see if this is true. Maybe because she has taught lots of other kids, she already knows this.  

I hope so because I want to learn about all the things that will help keep me safe when we go to a pool or a lake or the ocean. I want to learn how to always remember to WAIT when I see water and to float on my back all by myself and I know I am going to need her help to do that. I am going to need you guys to keep bringing me back to swimming lessons and to cheer me on even if I am still sad and tell you that I “never want to go back there”. I don’t really mean it but I’m still a little nervous about putting all my trust in Miss Dayna since we just met and everything.  

I might still cry when I come to swimming for the first few days but it's OK to cry when I learn new things and Miss Dayna and I work on becoming a team. Miss Dayna said that each day we will come to swimming and work on our blowing bubbles, do as many “works” as possible and then the last thing we will do every day is jump in the pool and roll on my back. After we finish all those things, then me and all my friends will get to get our moms and dads.  

I promised her that I am always going to try to do my best work, even if I do it loudly. She said that she would always do her best work too. Then we high fived. That was my favorite part.

It was probably hard for you to listen to me and watch me be upset but I’m totally OK. This is something that I need to learn, even if it's hard. This is my life we are talking about!! I am so glad that I have Miss Dayna with me every day. She is never going to leave me. She promised and she is a for-serious-promiser. 

I think that swimming might become one of my most favorite-ist things but I just need a little bit of time to get there.  

My first swimming lesson is all done and I did a great job, you did a great job and Miss Dayna did a great job. High fives for everyone. GOOOOOOOOO TEAM!!

I know that you must love me very much because you took me to swimming lessons today and we will do it again next week OK??!!

I love you so much, 

Your little swimmer <3