Mermaid

Ok, I take it all back. At Annika's 2nd swim lesson, she was perfect. Laughed and smiled the entire time. The teacher told me she thought Annika was ready to "go under" which terrified me, so usually I'd lift her out after only getting her mouth and nose wet for a second. She coughed up water a couple times and then started squirting it out of her mouth and pretty soon would just have her mouth wide open the whole time.

Finally, I let the teacher send her to me with her head fully submerged and she did it! A bit of coughing but success. I was so excited.

Then today. After Saben's swim lesson today, we went in the hot tub since Annika didn't get to swim. (We turn the heat down to 85-90 in the summer and it is perfect to practice swimming.) Annika started dunking her head under ALL THE TIME. She had on some water wings and was jumping off all the seats & shelves where I was waiting to catch her and seemed to just love going under, always coming up with wide open mouth and a huge grin. I think she just lets the water run out of her mouth, but its so hard to tell....

She got braver and braver and by the end of the evening was completely freaking me out because she'd just suddenly go under and stay until I pulled her up. So weird and now I'm thinking this is actually more dangerous because she's not scared to fall into water anymore. I wonder what she would do if I didn't pull her up. (she can stand with her head above water in all parts of the hot tub)

I am so glad we have a lesson on Thursday because I have to grill the teacher on how to handle her new "skill".

Saben is also doing great with his lessons, but still scared to stick his face in the water. Funny though, he put his face down in the water at one point tonite and came up sputtering. Then later he jumped off the seat into my arms and I let him go under and he was totally fine. Its like you have to trigger their instinct (by jumping) to hold their breath or something.

So much more to write about - Annika turned two on Saturday and a few days before that we took a spontaneous family trip to Winthrop. The weekend before that, we managed to actually move stuff (tv, couch, toys into the playroom) down into our basement because we are nearly finished! It has been such a busy month....