Today Grace had her first swimming lesson. As she lept off the side of the pool executing a perfect swan dive and then preceded to dive to pick up rings, my heart swelled with pride. As a mum who can't swim, I dreamed my children would be calm and comfortable in the water, and there was my Grace, a true water baby.
Oh wait. That's not my life. My life started with Grace stress testing her swimming nappy. The nappy lost.
It continued with screaming, loud screaming, as we entered the water. This started the other three (much older) kids crying. Grace yet again showing her leadership skills. The other babies soon realized that swimming was fun. Gracie disagreed.
There were brief smiles as we bounced in the water, followed quickly by bottom lip dropping and LOUD protests. At one point the game was to pick up toys in the water and put them in a basket. Grace has not yet learnt to give something back so did not understand the game. The oldest child (about three) quickly assessed the situation, saying to her Mum " Don't take Gracie's starfish!!". Good learning for everyone.
At one point we were offered the option of putting babies head under the water. General consensus was that we should not try this with Grace in the first week.
I must admit, I did have fun. It really was so funny to see Grace trying to figure out what the hell was going on. She knew it should be fun, after all she loves baths. But I think she was confused about what the heck all these people were doing in her bath....
I'm pretty sure she did pee in the pool, so I guess that was her passive agressive way of getting her own back.
We will be going again next week, although we half expect to be met with a petition from the other mum's that we change groups.....
Today's photos are firstly of Gracie warming up prior to her lesson....followed by a deep, exhausted sleep post lesson. Screaming for 30 min is damn hard work.
