otto in the pool

even though my mom has a pool at her place and joe's parents put in a pool 2 summers ago, we kept otto out of the water this past summer. being born in may, i just felt too worried about the water and sunscreen and sunburns and on and on and on. but we knew he would love the water. he loves the bath, LOVES it and has since that very first bath. never a cry at all from this guy about being in the water. and he loves it. we started swim lessons a few weeks ago and he is hilarious. he likes to dunk his face in the water and then comes up sputtering and blinking, all smiley and proud. he knows to "jump" in at the count of 3, but usually gets so excited that just laughs and bobbles around and forgets to lean forward to fall into the pool. below are two short videos of otto in the water....nothing too exciting, but cute nonetheless.

Swim Lessons

here are some pics from greta's swim lesson this week. this was her third lesson, and joe went with us this time to take pictures and to see greta in the pool. at the beginning of the class the instructor has the parent blow bubbles so that the child can see (and eventually copy) this skill. the first two weeks i was blowing bubbles while greta looked around at other kids and at whatever. this week i noticed that she was watching me and laughing when i was blowing bubbles. i guess that's the first step. the pictures are of us swimming to the side and holding on to the side. we also do some floating and kicking. in the video you can see greta "jumping" in and her underwater swim that they do at the end of the class. overall i think she enjoys her time in the pool. at least in the one photo she looks pretty happy about it.

water baby

today i took greta for her first swim "lesson". she LOVES bath time so i figured she would feel the same about being in the pool. when we walked into the pool area, she started going, "ooh. ooh. ooh". i don't know if this was because she was excited or because it was so warm in there. she was all decked out in her swimsuit, showing off all those chubby rolls. i think she had fun. she seemed sort of indifferent about it. but she did lots of splashing like she does in the tub, and seemed to enjoy making friends with the other swimmers and watching the waterslide area (lots of spraying water). she did some kicking, some floating, and one underwater swim with mommy's help. she also practiced "jumping" in from the edge. i think joe is going to go with us next week so we'll have more pictures. i think having her in the water at this age is great, and hopefully between the swimming lessons and our upcoming time at the pool this summer, she will learn to love the water.