Jayden has always had anxiety about doing things by himself.  To this day, he will hardly play in the basement if I’m not there with him.  Putting him in the church nursery was always a headache.  We’d get called out of the service every time because Jayden would be in hysterics.  It wasn’t until about 6 months ago, when a woman who is in our small group started teaching his Sunday school class, and she ripped him off our legs and kept him with her the whole time and kept him occupied enough that he made it the entire hour without a melt down.  He still freaks out every once in awhile when we go to church, but at least we get to sit through an entire service now!

So, the idea of him going to preschool has always made me a bit nervous, because I don’t want to deal with the meltdown before class everyday.  Most of the people I know put their kids in preschool when they turned 3, not me though, it was never a serious consideration at all, because I knew Jayden would flip a lid.  But Jayden will be 4 in April and next fall, Royal and I are seriously considering putting him in school (homeschooling would be the other option - not just because of Jayden’s anxiety, for other reasons as well).  So, in preparation for that, I decided to test the waters with Jayden.  I signed him up for swimming lessons, since he’s now old enough to be in a class by himself.  We chose to put him in lessons at the Wichita Swim Club, because from what I have heard from other people and read on their website, they don’t let kids cry their way out of swimming.  They take crying kids out of their parents arms and take them to the pool.  Even if they are sitting on the side of the pool crying, the teachers pull them into the water and make them do whatever skill the class is working on.  The parents aren’t even allowed to be in the pool area, we can watch through windows on the side, and if your child is having trouble being able to see you, the teacher asks you to stop looking.  They are hard-core and this was totally what Jayden needed, someone who wasn’t going to give into him if he started throwing a fit!

I started prepping Jayden for his swimming lessons a full month in advance.  We’d talk about him going to a class all by himself and he’d started out saying he wasn’t going to swim without me or Royal.  Then he’d change his tune and started waivering and every other time he’d be okay with it, then he wouldn’t.  So, by the time this Monday rolled around, he knew what was coming, and he was excited to go swimming, he just wasn’t sure about doing it alone.  Jayden totally exceeded all my expectations and I am just so proud of him.  When we were sitting in the room before the class started and his teacher came in and called his name, he looked at me with a bit of a shocked look on his face, but I told him to go with his teacher, and she grabbed his hand, and another little girl’s hand, and headed out the door.  I actually didn’t get to see any of this first lessons, because I had to sit through an orientation thingy, but his teacher told me after class that Jayden did great.  He started out kind of crying on the edge of the pool, but as soon as she got him in the water he changed his mind and started having a great time and did great the whole class.  And the best part was that Jayden loved it.  He talked about it all the way home, he told me he cried a little, but that he started having too much fun swimming, and he couldn’t wait until Wednesday so he could have another swimming lesson.

Today, I managed to bring my little handheld video camera, which I can take pictures with.  It’s just to hard to keep Willow contained and take pictures with my good camera too.  (Royal’s had basketball games this week, so he hasn’t been able to come with us yet)  Not to mention, I can’t get inside the pool area until Jayden’s last class of the session, so I’m trying to take pictures through a foggy, water spotted window.  So, these pictures are not very good at all and are pretty blurry, but Jayden just looks so cute in his goggles and fins sitting on the edge of the pool.

This video is of Jayden trying to learn how to do a flutter kick. When he gets on his back, he has a tendency to just start flinging his legs trying to make the biggest splashes possible. And who wouldn’t???