Today was my first swimming lesson. (As a dad.)

Jakey and I journeyed across town to Matt Dishman Community Center. I didn’t expect the sensation coursing through me as I carried him across the parking lot. I was nervous.

I spend all my time around pools. I run two of them, I have swum in hundreds, and coached at many more.

But, this was my first time doing this.

Everything about a familiar place became foreign. I had to figure out how to put my swim trunks on in the locker without Jakey bolting for the door. It’s one of those pool entrances where there’s no physical door to the lobby we entered through. Just a wall jutting out far enough to block the sightline down the hallway.

I had a vision of him getting around that corner and me having to make the split second decision to chase him with nothing but a T-shirt on, holding my boxers and swimsuit, or to shout something instructive down the hallway like, “Baby loose! Grab him, he’s fast!”

I relished neither scenario.

Believe it or not, that whole scene seared across my mind in the split second it took me to lunge after him and snag his skinny wrist before he got the jump on me. He has an explosive first step, as they say in basketball.

I got me changed, him changed, and both of us out to the pool deck. The feeling of utter newness continued. I threw in the proverbial towel and asked a nice looking couple against the wall for help.

“This is our first day. Do I need to check in with someone?”

They clued me in about where instructors meet with the next lesson slot, but were less helpful about where I might leave my backpack and the diaper bag. They allowed that there were lockers in the locker room.

I nodded sagely.

I didn’t mention that I’d considered this and thought better of leaving my keys, wallet, phone, dry clothes, and towels in an unlocked locker at a community pool. As an adult who’s been to a whole bunch of pools, leaving my stuff unattended in a locker room is about as appealing as eating something off the floor at VooDoo Doughnut. [And I mean the original VooDoo with the entrance in the middle of the block, its lobby a little larger than a handicap restroom stall, dim verging on dark, trammeled by the foot traffic of a thousand doughnut-craving citizens and tourists and the occasional wedding party (only $250 for the basic wedding package!).]

I plunked our bags by a window between some other people’s stuff on deck. Perfect. Right out in the open where I still would not once remember to glance at them.

Time to take a cleansing shower. The sign said so. I don’t do this at my pool, but I’ll play their little game since I’m on their turf. Set a good example and all that.

At 3:40, a woman climbed the three steps to the guard platform and gained our attention. She asked the kids to turn up their listening skills before she recited the three rules of swimming lessons (no gum or Band-Aids, take a head-to-toe shower, and don’t get in until you’re told you can).

I thought to myself that, as someone who works with adult college students, it’s not just the small children who may need to turn up their listening skills.

She read from her roster the day’s lesson groups by child’s first name and their corresponding instructors and locations around poolside. By the third lesson group—all fish names, of course—none of our horde had moved. I guess this clued her in that she was reading from the roster for the next session.

Considering I have no idea what any of the fish names mean, I was waiting patiently trying not to miss Jacob’s name. The Connors and Esperanzas and Vivians rolled off her tongue and I dutifully listened to name after name.

After she caught her mistake, Jakey’s name came up for the first group of the 3:40 slot: Angelfish.

From instructor Caroline, we learned how to “get in the pool.” There’s more to it than you’d think.

Jakey and I nailed it and I soon held him above two and a half feet of 84 degree water. This is when he began looking longingly toward the pool deck and saying, “All done. All done.”

His voice never rose to pleading, but I estimate he said “All done” roughly 250-300 times in the first ten minutes.

Everything improved after that. We learned that each class will begin and end with songs. That leaves a few minutes in between during our half hour lesson for whatever the meat of the lesson turns out to be. Today the meat was wading around listening to my water-shy boy say, “All done” as he clutched a small rubber ball and a tiny plastic watering can.

I think about how tremulous I felt about the whole thing even though I’ve been to just short of a zillion pools. Plus, I’m almost positive I won’t drown in the shallow end or even the deep end, should it come to that. Jakey is still in that state where almost every outing shows him hundreds of new things and a trip to a weird pool has got to carry a lot of new with it. How can I blame him for his ambivalence?

I just want for him to one day love the water like I do and to feel comfortable, even confident as he swims.

I have to say, the songs helped.

Motor Boat left him nonplussed, but the other one got him giggling. Here’s the thing, I have no idea what the song was.

Our instructor—a recent college grad and 8-year Portland Parks employee (and chatty)—told us the name (maybe Baron Somebody’s Something-or-other) and then told us, “My parents grew up in the 60s so everything I learned had kind of a Star Trek twist put on in. So my version of this song does, too.”

I know we bobbed in a clockwise circle and that Captain Kirk was beaming someone up and then down. I could not keep pace with the other parents—veteran swim lesson customers each—as they raised their babies on the word “up” and lowered them in unison on the word “down.” I was too busy pondering why Captain Kirk and not Scotty was doing any beaming in the first place. That and trying not to drop my wet son who was, thankfully, no longer claiming he was done with swimming lessons.

He was laughing his loudest laugh and pistoning his legs with glee each time I lifted him skyward a little later than the other parents.

His happiness spilled over to me.

The thing about being a parent is you have to get used to learning that sometimes “all done” doesn’t mean all done.

Sometimes it means, “Dad, I’m not so sure about this. It’s pretty overwhelming and I just need you to know that. As long as you’re here with me, I’ll ride this out and see what’s up with this swimming lesson thing.”

Sometimes it means, “You better not drop me.”

I hear you Jakey. I’ve got you.