Swim lessons are back up and running this week.

I've been shlepping kids to swim lessons twice a week since Christopher was 3 -- with summers off. Cate was so excited to get in the pool last Fall when she was old enough -- she had been watching Christopher from the sidelines since she was 6 months old.

We've swum with SwimAmerica at the Service Pool nearby. Good teachers, nice families, excellent skills, good exercise -- what more could we ask for? Well, this year they made it a little (lot) more difficult by closing the Service Pool (for high school swim teams, followed by maintenance that will have the pool closed for months). This week we started up at the West High School pool on the other side of town.

Luckily, the West pool is not far from Christopher's school, so it's not a lot more driving than before. The problem? What to do with the 90 minutes between the end of school and the beginning of lessons. Problem solved -- Christopher wants to also be part of the Chugach Cheetahs running club. So, on Tuesdays and Thursdays he will now run for an hour after school and then swim for 30 minutes. Then he will promptly fall asleep before dinner (hopefully kidding, kind of ). That's a big day for a first grader. I told him we could try it as long as his attitude was good -- if it was too exhausting, the Cheetahs would have to stop, since they're free and I've already paid for swimming lessons. Yesterday was his first day of both -- and look at that smile! He says he wants to do both so he can be healthy and strong. Can't argue with that.

Cate's having more issues getting used to the new pool. Generally, kids like the West Pool better because it's less deep. At Service pool, it's deeper and they use little "tables" in the water for kids to stand on while they wait their turn with the teacher. At West there are no tables because it isn't as deep. However, most kids in Level 4 (Cate's level) are not 3 years old. She's pretty advanced for her age. To her, the water is now too deep without a table to stand on. The teachers have blessedly chosen to move her over to the shallow end of the pool and teach her her level 4 skills with the younger kids so that she doesn't have to be water that feels too deep to her.