Swim, baby, swim!

We're 2 weeks in now and Owen is LOVING his swim class. Uh, I meant to say, "wim cass." Thus far, he has shown absolutely no fear of the water and seems eager to do each of the new activities when we go. While I am thrilled that he is so confident and able, I admit that the fearlessness does scare me a bit. Especially when his new thing is to tell me "seff!" (meaning, "I can do it mySELF!") and try to push my hands away in the water. Sorry buddy, I don't think you're quite ready to go it alone. Soon enough, soon enough.


















Owen really caught on to the kicking early and we've begun to work on the paddling. At various times throughout the day, particularly at bathtime, we'll hear him saying "Padduh, padduh. Kick, kick." Hopefully this love of the water will continue.

Two separate instructors have now commented on his comfort level in the pool and what seems to be a budding natural inclination for "wimming." Judge for yourself...what do you think? Only time will tell.Maybe this is just a honeymoon phase.

In any case, as usual, he surprises me each week with what he's willing to do. The day these photos were taken, we were told that we would be working on getting their faces wet. The instructor asked us to go slowly with this process as many children would not like it. We were told to first get our own faces wet, talk to them gently about what would happen next and begin to trickle some water on them a little bit at a time. As she was finishing up the instructions, Owen filled his bucket completely with water and dumped it over his own head. This, of course, produced many laughs and got much attention and was then repeated over and over again. So much for going slowly.

Perhaps the real reason he loves "wim cass" so much is that he gets to spend time with 2 of his favorite girls, Caroline & Ella. Here's the threesome, shivering and less than thrilled, on the very first day of class.

It won't be long before they're playing Marco Polo and doing cannonballs off the diving board. Although, we might want to work a bit more on "Padduh, padduh. Kick, kick" first.

Even MORE swim photos here