The Flipper Hunt!

The boys and I have been spending a lot of time at the pool this summer. We generally go a couple of mornings each week and then head up for an evening swim about once per week.

Both of them LOVE the water. I have recycled mom and dad's old trick of bribing with pennies for doing water tricks. Love this! It cost me three cents to teach Ryan to float on his back (with his life jacket), go under the water umbrella and jump in. Such an easy way to get him to do what I want! :-)

With his life jacket, a noodle, or even his floaties, he is pretty comfortable anywhere in the pool by himself. He had only swam for a few seconds here or there in the 3 feet water by himself a few times....

After hanging out at the pool one evening (which is generally when the older kids come out to play), he asked me when he could get flippers. So, I thought I would take the bribe trick up a notch....I made the following deal: If you work really hard on swimming without any flotation device so that by the end of the summer you can swim in the deep end all by yourself, I'll buy you flippers on that very same day!

I thought that would be a nice goal, something to work at each day for a few minutes while he was still having fun with his toys. Well, I should have been smarter.

He decided he didn't need flotation devices anymore and that he was going to swim by himself that night. As soon as break was over, we headed to the deep end....and sure enough! He swam to me and then I made him turn around and swim back to the wall. Part of me was thinking...woo-hoo!! And the other part of me realized it was 7pm and I had to take the kids home and then go flipper shopping to keep up my end of the deal.

The Braden pooped in the pool...which was another disaster and story in and of itself! (No, we did not get kicked out...he was wearing double protection - thank goodness!)

Back to the flippers....So, I put B to bed and headed out on a trip with Ryan. I have never ran in and out of so many stores in such a short period of time. We hit up the only 6 stores I could think of in Leesburg that would sell flippers. Of course Target was the only one that had them in his size...but they were PINK. Totally not acceptable.

So, this morning we went all the way to the Toys-R-Us in Sterling.

Ryan is now the proud owner of ORANGE flippers. Whew....

So, Ryan has a new trick. Definitely still not perfect and not a skill I would let him try without me near but, he did swim by himself.

Next time I make a bribe, I think I'll stick to pennies. But, I have to say, flippers were tons cheaper than swimming lessons! LOL.