Swimming lessons

Welcome to the Dunkley family swim school.

Teachers this year:

Mom, Kristi, Jessica, and Heather

This is Benson's 1st yr of swim lessons. He is so dang cute in the water--you seriously want to squeeze him. He keeps his mouth open with a huge smile the whole time. My Mom is his teacher and says his chest cavity shakes from him laughing. Well, until you put his eyes in the water. Then he freaks out and whines to his mommy!

Reece is also doing awesome. Thanks to Haylie (and a little friendly competition) he now loves putting his head in the water. Last week he came up with a game where he throws his blue tube away from the steps and then swims until he catches it. He's a brave little guy.
The boys enjoy a snow cone from Natalie and Nicole's candy store after lessons. This session has been especially fun because their cousins Kylie & Haylie were in lessons with them!

LESSONS LEARNED FROM SWIMMING LESSONS:

1. DON'T give Benson INSULIN 30 min. prior to lessons. On his first day of swim lessons I gave him a correction before he got into the pool. I checked him 10 minutes after his lessons and he was 29! I frantically picked him up, ran into the house, and started shoving fruit snacks down his throat. My whole body was shaking--I thought for sure he was going to go unconscious as I was feeding him. Well, the same thing happened on Thursday. I then realized that we can't give him insulin before he takes his bath (or gets into warm water) because the insulin can infect his skin and the hot water causes insulin to activate more quickly. DUH!! Why didn't I think the swim water would do the same thing. Add on top of that exercise and the sun and you have a deadly combination. I've learned this summer that being in the hot sun drops his blood sugars fast. He eats a snow cone (loaded with sugar) after lessons to level him out.

2. Reece has VERY SENSITIVE skin. I tried 4 different sun screens and he reacted to all of them. It got so bad that he told me he was allergic to the sun and sweating. Then he started to get weary of swimming lessons because he was associating his sunscreen reactions to the pool. We finally found a sunscreen that will work for him--it's coppertone for sensitive skin. No more itchy, red blotchy, and irritated skin. Hurray!