Madeleine's Swim Lesson

Madeleine has graduated to actual lap-swimming at her lessons, and the past two weeks she and her classmates have gone from one end of the pool to the other doing the front crawl.  Although it tired her out: "Mama?  I was, like, SO tired that I felt like I wanted to, like, just take a NAP in the POOL!", she made it like a champ.  I got what I could on video, although mostly you'll just see a little head bobbing around in the water since I was sitting on the other end of the pool room:




Madeleine is pretty proud of herself after watching the video.

ME: What do you think of that?
MADELEINE: Ga-REAT! (spinning around in a hoppy twirl)


So how did Madeleine get so good at doing her front crawl?  She explains the technique:

"So Mama when you're breathing, you have your breathing arm back and the arm that is NOT where your mouth is pointing to is in FRONT of you.  Because, like, if you had BOTH of your arms in front of you, you would probably sink.  And if you had your BREATHING ARM in front of you, then you wouldn't be able to breathe, and you'd be breathing on your sleeve.  I MEAN! - your ARM.  (laughing) I thought you were wearing your CLOTHES in the pool.  When you're breathing this way it's (turning her head to the side and taking a gasp of air) and when you're breathing the other way it's (turning her head to the other side and taking a gasp of air.)  Having one of your ears in the WATER."

Everybody got it?  Now you'll all be front crawl experts too!