It seems counter-intuitive, but I don’t think cold germs stand a chance in the swimming pool.

Mind you, this is purely anecdotal. The my little google search didn’t turn up anything to back up my claims. I just know that whenever I have a cold, I could be almost all stopped up when I start a set, but I can breathe by the time I finish the set, and my cold is completely gone 2 days later.

I brought this up because my son in swim lessons has been coughing for over a month. He usually catches a cold and holds on to it for ever. I remember taking him swimming one October when he was under 2, and he caught one of those endless colds, so I was apprehensive about signing him up for swimming.

But then I thought about how my colds can’t stand up to chlorine, and I thought the pool might be just the thing for his condition. What do you know? The boy who couldn’t stop coughing throughout the day has cut the coughing in half, and he doesn’t cough in the pool at all.

Do you have any chlorine cold fighting anecdotes?

I knew all summer that the only way I could get my kids into swim lessons at our old swim club would be to go down to the pool and talk to the head coach. Even though they have a website, a facebook page, and a twitter account, they are really more face to face people. I kept putting it off, getting busy with first 1 thing, then another.

I finally went down there after I heard about that drowning tragedy.

I thought I’d have to reintroduce myself. After all, it’s been 4 years since my kids swam with the club. But the head coach not only recognized me, he knew my name, and told me he likes my blog posts. That was a nice icebreaker. I told him I wanted to put the kids in lessons, and he smiled and told me that the session was almost over, but not quite. He told me to bring the kids on down and talk to the Learn to Swim coach, my older kids’ old coach. It was Friday. The kids would have to wait for Monday to get start their swim lessons.

When we got to the pool, the baby wanted to put on her suit too, even though she was too young for lessons. The little girls took their swim test. They were originally put in the most advanced group, but they couldn’t swim all those 25s. They were moved to the group where they were swimming 12 1/2s. What surprised me was that they were put together, considering that the 8 year old left off at the streamline kick to the flags at her last lesson. She’d never been taught to breathe in the freestyle before, but was able to swim a little freestyle here, and she learned quickly. She is very athletic and has great heart.

Her 10 year old sister has more skills; had been taught freestyle, backstroke, and breast stroke. She had advanced to the point of swimming 25′s, practicing and perfecting her strokes. She has much less stamina and heart than her younger sister. They ended up in class together. The 8 year old, who usually ends up under the water when she tries to float on her back was finally able to float and swim on her back during her lesson. She had a big smile on her face the whole time. The 10 year old wasn’t smiling, but both said they had a good time.

Meanwhile, the 6 year old learned floating in his learn to swim class. He cheerfully did bobs, and learned to float. His class had a lot more sitting around waiting in line than the more advanced class.

Unfortunately, I finally took the kids to the pool on the last day of the summer session. They are to start up again in the fall.