It has been a big year for Olivia. She has been mostly afraid or very dependent on a float for the last couple of years. This year, she took 6 days worth of swim lessons with five other 4 and 5year olds. I was really excited when she was excited to go to swimming, tried to put her face in the water some, and didn’t freak out on the teacher. Well, she exceeded my expectations. On the last day of class, the teacher took the students to the deep end and encouraged them to try and jump off the diving board. This was a long spring board in the 12ft deep end of the pool. Olivia climbed up on the diving board no problem. I was amazed. Then she walked to the end, looked down, and instantly starting shaking all over and crying hard. She was helped back off the diving board. Then a lifeguard went and sat on the end of the board to help give some to the kids more confidence. I talked to her about staying calm (she counts to 10 while taking deep breaths) and just walking out there again. Well, that time she did just that and then jumped off. After that, she was hooked. She has loved the pool and jumping in ever since. This week she was trying to dive off the board. She even jumped off once having forgotten to put her water wings on and managed to swim most of the way across the deep end. Granted, she was rather panicked as were we but she did come back up out of the water after jumping and kept her head up.
We did take Ezra in the pool once a week or so ago but he wasn’t much of a fan--too cold for him I guess.
