Another milestone for Lewis

Yesterday marked another accomplishment for Lewis, one he has longed for the entire summer.

As you may recall both boys have been taking swimming lessons all summer and both boys have improved so much that I still stand amazed watching them in the pool.  It seems something has "clicked" and they're both so much more comfortable in the water than when we started.

Lewis moved up through the levels of swim class rather quickly, entirely skipping level 2 and going straight to level 3.  In this class, as a special treat at the end the participants are allowed to go off of the diving board.  Lewis had absolutely no problem going off, he bravely accepted the challenge and had a lot of fun being a big boy.   At the end of their last session, he was able to go down the big slides too.  This wasn't nearly as much of a challenge as we took him to the local water park and he had already conquered the slides, but he still enjoyed the fun.

And here's the dilemma.  While he's able to go off of the diving board and slides during swim class he's not able to during regular swim.  Why?  Because you have to pass a swim test to show the lifeguards you're ready for deep end swimming.  The test consists of swimming one lap across the pool using a stroke (no doggie-pedaling) and treading water for one minute.  This may not sound so complicated but let me tell you, it's a wide pool!  Several of Lewis' friends have passed the test this year and dare I say he's been a bit envious.  Passing this test gives you access to all of the areas of the pool including free access to the diving board and all of the slides- a real "big kid" rite of passage.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the pool and had a picnic in the park afterwards with several families.  We came home exhausted and the boys went straight to bed.  Here's a picture of Lewis on his way to dreamland - please notice the new accessory on his left wrist.  And the proud, but tired look on his face.

Yesterday our little big boy passed his swim test and he proudly wore this wristband for all to see that he too could swim in the deep end.  Another bonus to passing the swim test is wearing the blue wristband as a beacon for all to admire and he made sure everyone saw that he too had one.

And he swam, and swam, and jumped and slid and dove and swam and swam.

He's not actually wearing the wristband in this photo because this one is from swim class.
Yesterday I forgot my camera, ugghh.

I wonder how long he'll want to wear the wristband before finally cutting if off?