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The boys start swim school

by Mike250 on September 7th, 2007 in Family

I wrote in my last post that I think it’s almost a general rule that you may call yourself Aussie parents as soon as you enroll your kids with a swim instructor. This past Friday the boys started swim school and it’s fair to say it was a good experience for all of us. Watching the boys smile as their instructor led them up and down the pool was really good to see. They loved it and were really disappointed when their half hour was up. It’s good to know they’ll look forward to next Friday and that our money is wisely spent. Even Liam was breaking his fears…

Liam has a fear of water ever since the kind folk at Durango Recreation Center failed to do their job and notice him nearly drown in their pool. Jenifer had taken the boys to the rec center to play in the kids pool, a shallow pool area that has kids slides and water toys. It’s a fun place. The design of the pool is highly flawed though; a child doesn’t even have to get out of the water to find themselves at the foot of the big water slides in a separate pool or floating in the deep lazy river in another separate pool still. Further reasoning is that if a toddler has an accident in their pants then every person in all pools must exit the pool until the mess is addressed. Finally, the lazy river has a low wall separating it from the upper part of the kids pool. The wall is useless as it is far too low and easy for a wandering toddler to plunge over.

Which is exactly what happened with Liam when he was about 2 years of age. With Jenifer watching both boys her attention was diverted to Nevan probably doing something silly like going down the slide head first. In that moment little Liam found his way to that low wall behind her and fell straight into the lazy river. This pool is up to my neck deep when I walk around it. With Nevan corrected Jenifer turned to watch Liam and found herself in the desperate situation of not knowing where he was.

Frantic she looked every which way and somehow came to the lazy river to find Liam under water and in panic. She yanked him out and described him as blue and in a state of shock. I can’t begin to imagine what was going through his mind, in a position of not knowing what is happening to him and not having the power to end it.

Somehow no member of the public or lifeguard on duty noticed anything. We were furious and wrote a letter to the person in charge. I am certain it fell on deaf ears. Our position was a child friendly wall or divider needs to be added to the wall to better protect stray children. Their position is probably one of not spending money, so long as the public pays to swim and no one is killed then everything is fine. They are damn lucky we didn’t pursue this further, my guess is we probably could have owned them on charges of inadequate personnel on duty. They’re infamous with the public for short cutting where possible…

Poor, poor design. But heart warming to watch Liam slowly overcome. And Nevan, well, he couldn’t get enough of it and here’s hoping he develops a great swimming ability. He loves being in the water.

More photos: http://mike250.com/gallery/v/year/2007/september/

Listening to Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park on Meteora [?]