Swim Away With Me!

Now that the house is a little more calm, I'd like to take the time to talk about Kaylani's first swim class. This wasn't her first time in a pool since she's been in twice before, but this time was definitely the warmest water she's been in (which is funny considering her first time in a pool was in PR). This time, she got to enjoy the heated pool inside a sauna of a facility at the West Windsor YMCA for her first of ten Parent & Me swim classes.

Kaylani's class consists of 7 other kids all ranging from 6 months to 2 years old. I think the majority of the kids are around Kaylani's age, with 2 of them being closer to the 2 year mark. Her teacher, Miss Susie, started off pretty slow with some time passing around a ball to get all the kids acclimated to the water. Not to brag or anything, but Kaylani seemed to be one of the calmest in the water (especially compared to her friend Sofie...just kidding guys). After she spent a few minutes seemingly unaffected by the water I had visions of the next Michael Phelps, or Dara Torres as it might be. But then I realized that she was probably so calm because she just woke up from a 5 minute nap a few seconds ago and had no idea what was going on other than the fact that she was in a warm liquid from her waist down that could have been her own pee for all she knew. Eh, details.

Anyways, the 30 minute class went by much quicker than I thought it would. We sang songs like "the babies in the pool,"which is sung to the tune of "the wheels of the bus." We played games like grab the squeaky water toy, which Kaylani happened to be a pro at since we have the same toys at home for her bathtime. And we learned some swimming basics, like how to do a "humpty dumpty" into the pool, or to glide on our bellies or back across the water, or to get out of a pool arm-knee-arm-knee (which is a hard lesson to teach to a 7 month old). Then it closed out with a couple more songs that I don't remember (and frankly couldn't hear because there were 3 other classes going on with older kids and the acoustics were terrible in the pool), and some free-form play time where we splished, we splashed, and had a good ol' time.

All in all, I'm going to call Kaylani's first swim class a rousing success. She even smiled a few times for the paparazzi, which was really just Mommy and Jen taking hundreds of pictures (Mommy took 161 pictures during the 30 minute class). Unfortunately Kaylani doesn't have class this Saturday because of the July 4 Holiday, so we'll have to wait 2 weeks before we can try it again. Soon we're going to build our way up to dunking Kaylani under water and seeing how she handles it. We're going to have to build Mommy up to that one too since she's kinda freaking out just thinking about it. But in the meantime, check out pictures from the last bunch of days. In addition to 21 pictures in the pool, there are a few from Amish country, Hershey, Prineton, and the family just hanging around the house. Until later, or as Dory says, "just keep swimming!"