The picture above sums up pretty well what Tucker thinks of swim lessons. He is not very much a fan. The first lesson this year he wouldn’t even get in the water and the only thing he would do was kick sitting on the side of the pool. He even cried when I asked him to try as hard as he could to participate with his class! I was hoping another year would have cured his fear of the water but that first lesson was a repeat of last year. Last year I had to get in the water for him to do anything the entire time.
After consulting with Austin, we decided to call in the big guns and shamelessly bribe him. I told him that if he tried everything his instructor asked at the next lesson, I would buy him a toy at Dollar General (the only store in our little town that has toys besides the 
thrift store). (We also went early to work on things just the two of us.)
Anyway, the bribe was so worth it. Tucker totally changed his tune. His little body was stiff and he looked like he was in physical pain, but he did everything the instructor 
asked. And he was so proud of himself and picked out a remote control car, and is in love with it. Of course, he has been campaigning for something every day since then but no dice with that, except for an ice cream treat a couple days.
He was even brave yesterday when he almost drowned! (Slight exaggeration, but he did go down for a few seconds.) He was holding onto the edge, and the class was in an area that he could touch IF he stood on tip toes and made his face look up. But he must have thought he could stand up regular, and he let go and went down. The instructor was 10’ away holding another kid, but I was right there to grab him. I thought that that would be the end of swim lessons for the summer, but he got right back in and tried more at his next turn. I was pretty impressed because that situation was legitimately scary.
