Swim lessons, swim lessons, and more swim lessons

Sorry, no new pictures to post. As the title of this post states, all we do now is swim lessons. Our days have been all about time management, packing suppers, packing swim gear, and swimming. Leah continues to have swim lessons Monday through Thursday. Three weeks down and one more to go. She is developing more skills and can actually swim from point A to point B, as long as she does not know she is swimming where she can't stand. The big achievement of this week was jumping off the diving board to me and then swimming back to the edge of the pool. At first, this was not something she wanted to do. Her swim lesson class started going off the board on Tuesday. Leah was the only one to decide she was NOT going off the board. She came crying over to me as her class went to the deep end. I walked over with her and persuaded her to go off the board and jump to me. So here Leah was, crying on the diving board with her teacher telling her she did not have to jump and me telling her to JUMP. She finally did to a round of applause, and she has been jumping ever since. I created a monster because now that is all she wants to do. Unfortunately, I don't always have someone to watch Emme. Leah is not at the point where I or she is comfortable with her going without me in the water, although she has jumped off and swam to the side without assistance the last few days.

Emme is also gaining new water skills. She is sitting on the edge of the pool at the 4 foot end and "jumping" into the water. Amazingly she is not upset in the least about going under the water. She comes up for air giggling and wants to do it again. We are working on swimming with water wings to help keep her afloat.

Both Leah and I have made some new friends at the pool, even some children that she will be attending Kindergarten with in the fall. We have also are starting to become good friends with a single mom and her daughter that she adopted from China. We met last year at the pool and then seemed to see each other everywhere. They now belong to Coney and her daughter takes swim lessons at the same time as Leah. It has been nice to have someone to talk to, and keep an eye on Emme as needed (whenever Leah wants to jump off the board). The girls have gotten together on several occasions for outings.

This week I will be preparing for our annual trip to the beach. (In between work, swim lessons and more swim lessons) I can't wait to see the family and introduce Emme to all her cousins she had not yet met. Packing will prove interesting with the increased gear that is needed when traveling with a baby. But I know Leah will have a great time and Emme should enjoy the beach based on her love of the water so far. I promise to have many pictures once home from the beach for everyone to enjoy.

Jeanne