My brave little pumpkin!

When I was pregnant with Lily, Mark and I would laugh and dream about what we would do to ensure she was a better swimmer than either of us. When she was about 7 months old- after her first swim lessons at the YMCA- I was on vacation with my friend Sandy in Arkansas. One night at the hotel pool, I was holding Lily and stepping into the pool. The steps were incredibly slick and I busted it big time, letting go of Lily in the process. As I scrambled to get upright underwater, I turned to see Lily headed for the bottom of the pool. Sandy and I reached her at the same time and pulled her to the surface. The couple of seconds before she took a deep breath shaved many years off of my life. It is a terrifying feeling that I will never forget.

Since that time, Lily has been uncomfortable in the water. We signed her up with Emler swim lessons when she was about a year and it was a disaster. Lily was just too panicked and it made us uncomfortable forcing the issue. Since then, we have just been trying to have lots of fun, unstructured time in the water. It has been more relaxing, but Lily was making no progress on her comfort in the water.

At the beginning of the summer, we were at the pool in our neighborhood. It has a baby pool that is 18" deep and perfect for our non-water child. I was collecting our things as Lily walked around the big pool to get to the exit. I heard a splash. I looked up to see Lily bobbing in water over her head and going down. My neighbor reached her before I did and pulled her out. It took me two days to find out that she was "playing on the jungle gym" (the stair rail) and slipped. Needless to say, I was pretty much done with the heart wrenching fear of seeing my child struggle in the water. My neighbor recommended safety swimming lessons through Ms. Cathy and we signed up.

I would love to report that the lessons cured Lily's fear, but that is not the case. She has as much anxiety now as she did when she started, but what it did is show me how incredibly brave Lily is. She cried through every minute of swim lessons- at least every minute her head was not under water- and yet, she did it anyway. I am so proud of her. According to Ms Cathy, she is actually a really good swimmer with good fundamentals. What we know now is that if she were to fall in again, she would be able to swim to the side and get out. Good enough for me this year.

Here is some video of her swimming.



Here is video of her diving and picking a rock off the bottom of the pool.



After each time that Lily swam in the pool. Mark had the idea to make her repeat what she did so she could start recognizing that she was swimming.




We are so proud of our brave little girl.