My little Mer-twerp

For those of you feeling jealous of our fabulous bed training skills (if sheer luck can be considered "skilled parenting") let me relate how Annika's first swimming lesson went today.

First of all, Saben has a lesson at 11am. At 11:15, Annika & I went to get our swimsuits on for our 11:30 class. As soon as Annika had her swim diaper on, she peed a ton, it leaked and I didn't notice till we were back out at the pool. (somehow her walking while grabbing her crotch did not clue me in) Luckily I had an extra swim diaper.

Saben's lesson ended & ours started 2 minutes later. I had to quickly get him dressed, whisk him to the gym's day care thing and then run back and jump in the pool with Annika, missing the introduction instructions.

As soon as we entered the pool, Annika started whining & gave a couple good screams as I gently splashed water on her. (as the teacher suggested we do) The next 30 minutes she pretty much whined and screamed the entire time. Sigh.

This is from a girl who absolutely loves water, runs through wading pools up to her chin in water and lays down with the back of her head wet in the bathtub.

My conclusion is that what she hated was me holding her & feeling powerless. I finally had her down in the water to her chin and I think she finally understood that she couldn't touch bottom and relaxed a teeny bit after that.

She did like chasing a ball in the water and did do some kicking and laying on her back. When I blew bubbles, she watched, then leaned down, stuck her face in and took in a huge swig of nasty pool water. Ugh.

But she would have none of the jumping in or even me lifting her up and down in the water. Of course her very favorite part was when I passed her through the water to the teacher and she had that split second of freedom where no one was holding her.