Splish Splash Dosh

We are nearing the end of Zak's sixth term of swimming lessons, and he can't swim.  I would say that he is ever so slightly nearer being able to swim than he was six terms ago, but only ever so slightly.....  That means I have spent £420 on him not learning to swim.  Depressing.  It is a small group, the teacher is good and in the water with them, and week after week I watch other children becoming swimmers, but not really Zak.

Zak isn't built like a swimmer and he is built like his father.  Now Stuart can swim; if you chucked him off the side of a boat he wouldn't drown, but he is not a natural swimmer.  The best way I can describe it, (sorry darling), is a little bit like a dog when it swims in the sea.  Lots of energy and enjoyment but no grace.  Zak is definitely going the same way.

It wouldn't be so bad if the whole experience wasn't so bloody painful as well as expensive.  The swimming pool is heated to an oven-like temperature so you are dripping with sweat before the lesson has even started.  Sebi spends his time in the changing room pissing everybody off by jumping out of lockers and then spends the time that Zak is in the pool testing me to see how close he can get to the edge before I leap up and grab him.  I'm sure he has a touch of OCD and cannot bear the way that the teacher leaves the floats and toys in such a mess on the side so busies himself by tidying them into nice neat piles which earns him some strange looks from the other mothers.  It would be fine if the teacher would just let him get on with it but she has said, very pointedly, "he doesn't need to do that for me thanks", which means I should really try and stop him but what she doesn't realise is that interfering with his tidying will result in a series of high-pitched screams which could possibly clear out the pool and the gym as they could definitely be mistaken for a fire alarm.

Over the past couple of weeks Zak has cottoned onto the fact that he is a little taller than other children in his class so when he is shallow enough he can hop across the bottom of the pool moving his arms and making suitable swimming-like facial expressions instead of actually bothering to swim.  It's killing me not pointing this out to the teacher but I remember the red mist I used to have if a TA dared to point out something I had missed in a drama lesson, and I refrain.

Oh well, at least it is summer at the moment so I'm barefoot on the poolside instead of walking all the way back to my car in blue plastic overshoes every week.  Maybe he'll swim when he's five.....