Turtles are the Trick

A couple weekends ago my mother-in-law offered to take me and the kids to a hotel pool in our town.  She had coupons and the kids wanted to swimming so it was perfect! 

I knew Sweet Pea would jump in and swim right away.  She's taken a few years of on and off swimming lessons and can swim well enough to have fun in the water.  I wasn't sure though how Babydoll and Little Man would do.  When BD was in the preschool level swimming lessons last summer she started off great, she was the gutsiest kid in her class, eagerly jumping off the edge into my arms, not that afraid to go under the water a little, she loved it.  She had loved it so much I bought her a pair of those little arm floaties.  You know the one's that look like giant neon biceps on a tiny child?  The next time we went swimming where we could use them, she had started doing a little bit of swimming with the floaties on and without me holding her.  Well I guess I pushed it just a little too far and she ended up scared to swim on her own.  So when we went to the pool this month, she had on a "puddle jumper" life jacket.  It's not a real life jacket, just something to make them float so they can get comfortable "swimming" on their own.  BD would not let me let go of her for a second in that pool!  Not only did I have to be holding her, but I had to have two hands on her pretty much the whole times.

This is her eating a granola bar, I didn't get any pictures of her in the water, I was holding her the whole time.

Even though she wouldn't let me let her go she had a blast!  Some of you may be saying I should have just let go of her to show her that she could do it, but I had crossed that line last summer and ruined all the progress she had made, and I needed to build that trust back, so I held on to her. 

Sweet Pea found a ball that the hotel had set out for kids to play with, and she abandoned her swimming noodle for it.  She was swimming like a fish, jumping off the sides, and having a great time. 

You saw the floaty turtle LM was in in the first photo right?  My sister got it for him for his birthday!  I had tried those types of things with both the girls when they were babies, and they didn't really care for them.  SP tolerated it somewhat, but didn't last long.  BD hated, and I mean, "don't put me in that thing if you want your ears to work again cuz I'll scream" hated our floaty.  So when my sister got LM the turtle I was hoping he would at least tolerate it for a while, and at the very least let me put him in it for 2 seconds, but wasn't too optimistic. 

You know what?  He loved it!

He would lean over and stick his hand in the water and start splashing until he started to move.  He splashed himself all around the shallow end of the pool (whether on purpose or not, he was having fun with what he was doing!) for over an hour.  I was a nervous wreck though since I had to have two hands on BD and LM had that turtle leaning so far to the side I kept thinking he was going to tip it over and be scared to death.  My mother-in-law was watching him like a hawk, but she wasn't in the pool and even if she told me the second he tipped, I knew he'd be so scared that he might not want to go back in the water.  And I still had to include Sweet Pea in our play, and get some play time with her. 

After about an hour and a half we changed clothes, packed up, picked up Spence who wasn't feeling well and had stayed home, and went to a Chinese buffet for dinner.  Yummy!!  I'm looking forward to getting the kids in pools at least a few more times this summer!  Especially since we have the floaty turtle!