Thankful Thursday!

Today I am thankful that my butterfly stroke is REALLY bad!  Oh, I can teach it, but my demonstration leaves a lot to be desired.  Read on . . . 

With the group from Sterling Academy, I've been doing a stroke a day.  With six Red Cross recognized strokes and eight days, it's doable.  Today was butterfly day and my supervisor Barbara graciously agreed to hop in the pool and teach the butterfly with me.  

Since the boys are now going first, I thought in the wee hours of the morning, "Wouldn't it be great if I could take Jack while Barbara takes the rest of the boys and give him a private lesson?"  Jack is pretty much a non-swimmer and afraid of the deep end.  Barbara was fine with that IF Jack wouldn't be embarrassed or feel left out.

The problem is Sterling has some pretty strict rules - the girls have to wait until the boys are out of the locker room and into the pool before they can come out of the locker room.  They can't be in the same pool at the same time.  Someone had to give me permission to put Jack in the same pool as the girls!

The first person I saw from Sterling today was a new mom - and she thought that would be just fine!  I wasn't going to ask anyone else!  I grabbed Jack - he was elated.  I stationed myself so that Jack was always looking at me, never at the girls, and friends, what a glorious day!

By the time we were done, Jack was able to swim the width of the pool on his front and his back and he learned how to tread water.  In one day, he was up to treading 22 seconds!  Talk about a happy camper!

And the smiles on the moms' faces (there were now four of them!) made it all worth it, not to mention the smile on Jack's face!  Today I am thankful for my quality one on one time with Jack because it made a difference in his life . . .