Last month, I blogged about enrolling my children in swim classes to honor a hope expressed by the children’s birth mother.

Today, the children finished their first two-week session of the summer. They are enrolled in four two-week sessions altogether. They received certificates and the two youngest passed all of their requirements for the next level. As mentioned, my oldest has never really been comfortable in water, so whereas he didn’t pass to the next level (I signed him up for this level again, knowing this might happen), his teacher gave him high marks for his vast improvement over the two-week session in terms of honest effort and at least making the effort to try.

I immediately came home and scanned the certificates and sent them via e-mail to the kids’ birth family, along with snapshots of the kids at the pool, taken over the last two weeks. It was important to me to sign the kids up, and it was important to me to make sure their birth family got to be in on the celebration. I wanted their mom to see pictures of her children in the water fulfilling her dream for them.

Because their birth mother swam competitively, I am strongly leaning toward a class for my daughter that feeds into a professional swim team. By next summer, she will be 7 (the minimum age), and because of the lessons this summer, will have the swim skills necessary to be in the class. She’s excited about the prospect and wants to work toward it. This professional swim club has another advanced level after the beginning sessions, so she has room to grow. The advanced class is preparatory for the competitive level, and is much longer than the beginning class she will be in. Thus, it will give her the opportunity to see if she can handle competitive swimming, with its long hours and dedicated practices.

Clearly, the final decision as to whether she wants to advance or not rest with my daughter. But, I think it would be a lovely tribute if it works out!

Photo credit: 2008, Marie Stroughter