This was an exceptional swimming summer, not just because I swam in Georgian Bay, multiple pools, my favourite lake in the entire world, plus a river and a brand-new-to-me favourite lake, but because my kids learned to swim!

My kids were in swimming lessons until the pandemic hit – in fact, I had gotten them into the SAME class in a most PERFECT time slot at the LOVELIEST pool right before the pandemic shut everything down and then…no swimming lessons. For years. And my three-year-old turned four, then five, and my five-year-old turned six then seven. How did I have a seven-year-old who couldn’t swim? It literally kept me up at night. It seems silly now, but it actually kept me up at night, having a seven-year-old who couldn’t swim. He didn’t even really like the water and every time I thought about it, I’d feel like the biggest failure of a parent. That all sounds hyperbolic, but it was my 4am shame spiral.

We started “Mama swimming lessons” in my friend’s backyard pool, because I cannot be in a pool with my kids without putting on my swim instructor hat. They would take off their floaties and swim around with me, and within the very first day, they were both floating. Floating! Just like that. 

I kept trying to remember how to teach swimming. I did it for years, but I couldn’t remember how to teach kids how to trust that the water was going to hold them. I don’t know if there really is a way, except practice, and helping them feel safe in the water. 

By some divine intervention, I got both my kids into outdoor swimming lessons at Sunnyside Pool. And we spent a few mornings at my friend’s backyard pool with the nephew of an old school/lifeguarding friend, and just like that, my kids started swimming. They can both float on their fronts and backs. They are both figuring out front crawl and back crawl.

And after all that 4am panic, they are now my “river otters”. By the end of the summer, my oldest was doing triple somersaults forwards AND backwards. (I’m sure there’s a lesson for me in here somewhere…ahem)

Now we go to the pool without floaties which seemed entirely inconceivable at the beginning of the summer. Here we are, a family of swimmers. It is one of my greatest joys.