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Baby Buoy: Seven-month-old Isabelle Diepeveen of Milpitas relaxes while instructor Gina Ambrose floats her in the water.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Angels Below
Tots take to Water Babies Swim School like ducks to water
By Sarah Gaffney
They take to the water with the wobbly grace of sea turtles.
Unknowing of the deep end of the pool and never having heard the soundtrack to Jaws, babies are fearless swimmers. Just ask Gina Ambrose, who for the past 34 years has taught thousands of South Bay babies and children how to swim at her Water Babies Swim School on Apricot Avenue.
"Can you teach me to swim?" asks Jacob Mosko's mother, Elena, complimenting her 20-month-old toddler after he launches a near-perfect dive into the warm pool.
Today Ambrose, whose mother Gretchen Mack started Water Babies in 1951, is teaching Jacob how to find his way to the side of the pool, climb out and dive in. He gets the routine quickly, and once he does, the tiny tot spends his entire lesson happily hopping out of the pool and diving back in.
"He's so comfortable in the water," observes Ambrose, who swam competitively for 14 years before taking over the family business in 1981. "He doesn't want to stop. He just wants to go, go, go."
This is Jacob's second summer at Water Babies. "They enjoy it," says Elena, a Los Gatos resident. "His older brother took classes here. He didn't start till he was three and now he's like a fish. He loves the water." From March through September, Water Babies offers three-week sessions of swim lessons for children under 4 years of age. Assisted by a team of instructors, Ambrose teaches the infants and toddlers (who must be accompanied by a parent) in groups of three. For children over 4, Ambrose and her staff offer one-on-one lessons.
Ambrose begins each session by introducing the babies to the 90-degree water in a grandmotherly kind of way, holding them close to her side as she chats her way around the pool. Mom, a baby's instinctual life preserver, wades alongside teacher and student. On the very first day of instruction, the babies are dipped underwater while their reluctant life-preserver, mom, looks on.
"Here's what it looks like," demonstrates Ambrose, holding 7-month-old Isabelle Diepeveen, a veteran dipper. "One, two, three and then I blow in her face as I dip her in." According to Ambrose, babies respond to the face blowing by instinctively holding their breath just as their face enters the water.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Sealed With a Flip: Jacob Mosko slips like a seal into the pool at Water Babies Swim School on Apricot Avenue.
Brave Isabelle, in a yellow floral Old Navy bikini, delights in the dip, emerging from the water with a proud grin on her elfin face. Having had just five swim lessons, Isabelle is a master dipper and is able to float the short distance between mom and teacher on both her back and stomach.
"We have a pool at home ... and she just loves the water," says her mother, Danielle, herself a Water Babies alumna. "When I was six months old my parents enrolled me here. That was 24 years ago."
Midway through their three-week session, the babies in this swim class seem as content and comfortable as just-fed goldfish. Yet, Ambrose admits that it isn't always smooth sailing when a baby first meets the water.
"Sometimes if they're brand-new to water, yeah, they get scared and they just hold on to you and they scream and holler and cry," says Ambrose, who has taught babies as young as 2 months old how to swim. "What we do is we put floaties on their arms to give them buoyancy. We put the fins on their feet to give them power behind it. Once they get the confidence, they're all over the pool . . . and then they're right under the water."
After 20 minutes of swim lessons, the hardworking babies are rewarded with 20 minutes of play time in the shallow end of the pool. Festooned with inflatable Crayola floaters and a sea of plastic toys, the splash-filled play area is where the little ones show off their newly learned dips and dives in front of mom and dad.
"I really, really push the play time. It's not something you pay for," says Ambrose, who has written a book with her mother on how to teach babies to swim. "I offer this to the parents because I feel that it's almost as important as the lessons for the children, because they put together what they learn over here."
At the end of little Jacob's lesson, the water baby continues his diving in the play area, backed by the applause of mom and Ambrose. "Wonderful, wonderful!" cheers Ambrose. "This is a lot of fun," says the proud teacher. "I absolutely love it."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
