Blossoms: Azaleas are in full bloom everywhere. The church down the street has a spacious side yard with azaleas lining the fence: dark pink, pale pink, salmon, white, and red. There is no discernible pattern, but they make a pretty showing.

At Daniel's Lesson

When Stephanie picked up Daniel on Saturday, she arrived more than an hour late. Tab was annoyed and gave her a hard time about her chronic lateness. It must not have made much of an impression on her, however. I asked her to be here at 3:00 this afternoon so I could pick Daniel up at 3:30 for his swimming lesson; she pulled up at 3:23.

4:20 p.m. I'm sitting on the bleachers by the pool right now, watching Daniel's lesson and typing this on my Zaurus.

Daniel is still at level 2. Stacy, the level 2 teacher for the rest of this week, is spending a lot of time with him. I am very proud of him; he is working so hard. When Stacy turns her attention to one of the other two kids in his group, Daniel practices his back floats by the wall.

Now Stacy is having Daniel do "pushoffs." She stands about ten feet away from him. He places his hands straight above his head and pushes off against the side of the pool toward her, his face in the water, and kicking.

There is a mother here who talks to herself. "Come on Den. Come on Debbie," she mutters. I suppose she is talking to her kids, though there is no way they can hear her over the noise of the pool. I've seen her here before; she seems just a little off to me, though I can't figure out exactly why.

4:35 p.m. Daniel just graduated to level 3! Stacy asked Laurie, the program director, to watch him perform his five-second unassisted back and front floats and a pushoff. Laurie congratulated him, and helped him out of the pool. She led him to her table, took his certificate out of a file, and let him place a gold sticker over the "Level 2" circle at the bottom of the page. The water must be especially cold today. Daniel was shivering when he got out of the pool, and his lips were almost blue.

Much to Daniel's joy, now that he has moved up to level 3, he has Kevin for a teacher again. There are only ten minutes left in the session, but he is making the most of it.

I'm watching older students practicing their dives across the pool. Some of them are diving off the high dive, doing amazing flips and turns. A young woman is jumping on a trampoline with a belt around her waist attached to elastic bands that run up to a kind of pulley system above. She jumps up and down a couple of times then leaps into the air; at the same time someone tugs on the pulley rope, helping her maintain altitude while she performs double and triple flips.

4:50 p.m. Daniel is getting out of the pool now. The lesson is over.

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