swimming and snorkels

After my daughter spent the entire summer swimming like a fish, I decided to sign her up for swimming in October.  I was never able to join a sport when I was young, so it was a big deal to me that my daughter be able to have that experience.  I even thought maybe I could learn along with her.  We could be a cute mother/daughter swim team.  People would look at us and say, "wow, who is that?!  Look at how good they are!" (I am a great snorkeler after all).  Well, after flailing around in the pool for nearly 6 months, I have decided that this swimming thing is just not for me.  I try to swim back and forth, but I am always gasping for breath, and end up doing the backstroke and watching the clock to see if my time is up yet.  I was telling my dad that I am either going to give up my swimming career, or have to just use a snorkel and ignore the "real swimmers" who will point and laugh at me for sure.  He assured me that it is not any worse than wearing goggles and a swim cap, that they would probably not laugh, and said, "Hey, we are great snorkelers.  We are just not swimmers."  At least I have figured this out before the lifeguards had to fish me out of the water and embarrass my kid!