And Then There Were Three: Anti-Skinny Dipping

(The princess dolls are for extra buoyancy, duh. :) )

The past month has quite literally flown by, and I can hardly believe that Emma Vance is almost done with her swim lessons for the summer! When I signed up, I thought, "Gosh, everyday for a whole month is going to get old quickly," but here we are, four weeks later, and daily lessons have become the highlight of our day and part of our routine.

E.V. is a total water baby and has cried just a little here and there throughout the past month. Even on the days when she's been cranky in the water, her instructor, Ashlee, always takes time at the end to play and splash with E.V., and my happy baby quickly snaps back to her water baby attitude. (Hey, a princess doll and some splashing can work wonders with a one year old!) The crying has mostly been toward the end here, especially now that she's being taught to roll over, meaning she's getting (gently) dunked. It's like she knows it's coming and protests in her little baby voice, "Not today! I just got my hair did!" Ha!

Another major development in our lessons is that we've moved into the swimming-with-clothes phase. As opposed to traditional swim lessons, ISR Self-Rescue teaches children how to survive a water emergency, and since they might fall in a pool fully clothed, ISR includes teaching fully-clothed floating. Now that we're in this new phase of lessons, E.V. has been more prone to wanting to sit in the empty tub at home to play fully clothed (Oh, babies!), and every time we go to set her in the pool, I can only imagine what's going through her mind, considering she probably thinks that the pool is just a giant tub. :) ("Mom, can you drain the water so I can play? Hell-o! I've still got my clothes on...") It's quite a sight to see our little lady floating around the pool, dressed shirt-to-shoes. She even wears a normal diaper, which is HUGE when her lessons are over. And I mean HUGE. It must weigh five pounds! It's funny to see her big ol' bottom filling her shorts when she gets out of the pool, and in those moments I totally understand where the inspiration for non-disposable swim diapers comes from.

As our time with Ashlee in the pool winds down, I'm happy to report that Emma Vance is floating on her own, working on rolling out of the face-down position and set to graduate {insert single tear} next week--just in time for her first birthday, of course. That's my girl!