My little mermaid.

My older two children have been doing swimming lessons now for a few months. We go on a Saturday morning - Trouble One first, then Trouble Two - which is fab for us. No rushing about after school and no having to go twice a week. Just the once, at a time which I can cope with. You book in for a ten week block, then the instructor decides whether you can move on up to the next grade, you book back in and the ten weeks start over again.

We've been a bit lax on swimming lessons for them both. While we go swimming a lot - albeit a bit less since the twins came along - they both have a lot of water confidence but very little in the way of technique, especially Trouble One who is in a grade with children two years younger, and a few inches shorter than her. She's gutted but it's spurring her on a bit.

With Trouble Two, it's not been so bad. We've been a bit more willing to arrange lessons for her and she's only three sub-grades behind her age group (she's doing pre-school 3 when she could be on pre-school 6), but hey ho. In the pre-school grades, the groups are very small. Some weeks, Trouble Two has had her instructor, Rob all to herself. Excellent value. 

Rob has been ace. He's been her regular instructor for the last 30 weeks, excepting the odd holiday or sick day. He's about 23, stocky, and looks like he'd probably be working at Games Workshop if it had turned out that he couldn't swim. I felt a bit sorry for him at first, being landed with the class of four-year old girls, all giggling away in their little frilly cossies, but he seems to love it. He is a genuinely nice guy. Trouble Two trusts him implicitly and will do anything for him. He has taught her to do the backstroke, and how to swim on her front with her face under the water. She would never do any of that for me. 

Today was week ten of ten. I have booked Trouble Two in to skip pre-school 4-6 and go straight to regular grade one. There doesn't seem to be much in it, requirement wise, and as she's now at school full-time, Rob was happy for her to give it a try. 

As she got out of the pool today, I told her to go and say thank you to Rob as I wasn't sure if he would be her instructor next time. She skipped off, gave him a little smile and a wave and trotted back to get in the showers. Then the sobbing started. She threw herself at me, all dripping wet and me fully-clothed and dry.

She hadn't really thought about moving up next week and I think she thought she was getting Rob again. She hadn't realised that it would mean a change in instructor and was absolutely devastated. I told her that her new instructor was going to be as good as Rob and would be really nice, and that she was going to do really well in grade one. She carried on sobbing. 

With that, Rob walked past. He noticed she was upset and asked what was wrong. I reluctanctly told him that it was because she didn't want to leave him and was worried about getting another instructor. He looked devastated too. He asked which day and time she was booked in for, and confirmed, that no, it wouldn't be him. I hoped he didn't start blubbing too because frankly, I had my arms full and I was wet enough already. 

He bent down to Trouble Two and told her that it would be someone lovely and good at teaching swimming and she wasn't to be worried at all. He said if she worked very hard at grade one and two, he would see her again at grade three. He would check who was going to be taking grade one next week and make sure they knew that his special Trouble Two was coming and she was to be taught brilliantly. She stopped crying and gave him a hug. 

Next week, she'll be just fine. Because Rob said so. And his word is gospel. 

My water baby