the man in the straw hat.

You've heard of the horse whisperer

& dog whisperer

& possibly the baby whisperer

But have you heard of the kiddie swim whisperer?

Meet Mr. Bonetti. The man in the straw hat.

Charisma & Energy

Knowledge beyond description

& Super Sweet

He's pretty much the most amazing swim instructor known to mankind.

x 1000

Kid after kid after kid...learning to swim from this guy.

Sign-ups in January?

Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Last year, I did not sign up for swim lessons in time for the infamous Mr. Bonetti. So we signed up with some local teenagers, who pretty much carried Calvin around the pool the whole time. Crying.

Finn fared a tad better...but he was still a frantic, lurky, jurky swimmer at best.

And when Finn was swimming up and down vertically, rather than horizontally, they had the audacity to tell me he was a "sinker" because he did not have enough body fat to keep him afloat.

Nonsense.

The reason Finn was a sinker was because he was not forcing his head and eyes down properly.

After witnessing my friends' kids swimming like fishies, I decided to give this guy a try too.

I signed up in January for swim lessons in June.

John and I took turns bringing them to swim lessons, for 9 days. It was the most entertaining and fascinating highlight of my summer. Each lesson was only 10 minutes long. Yes, only 10 minutes per boy.

But those were the most effective 10 minutes I've ever seen.

Right off the bat, I knew he was my kind of guy. He would shout to my boys,

"Get in the pool Punkin!"

or just "punk" for short.

He even calls his wife punkin.

And he would emphatically say,

"Look at my eyes. Look at my eyes. I'm not going to drop you. You are going to be ok!"

"Am I going to drop you? Noooooooo!" he would repeat a thousand times. Or every time Calvin started to wimper.

He made certain they felt 100% safe with him.

And every time my boys would make an accomplishment of any kind, Mr. Bonetti would start wildly splashing the water in excitement shouting "way to go boy!"

He was able to anticipate what my boys would do, even before they did it.

In just 90 minutes total, they learned how to:

breathe properly underwater,

and put their arms in the water like an arrow

kick their legs underwater

do some minor arm motions

jump off the side

reach the side of the pool if they accidentally fell in

but most importantly,

HE TAUGHT MY BOYS HOW TO SWIM!!!!

AMAZING!