Pool Party

Yesterday was Head’s 4th birthday (happy birthday again, kiddo)! Friend and Doc hosted a birthday dinner (complete with a They Might Be Giants birthday cake created by Friend), and then took all comers to the local pool where the Brain and Head have swimming lessons, and paid for us all to go to the open family swim.

Ane was so excited by the time we finally left their house for the swimming pool that I thought her head might explode.

Thanks to the able assistance of Best-baby-sitter-in-the-whole-wide-world (who really needs a better blog name) in the locker room, I was able to get the kids and myself into our bathing suits and get out to the pool in a decent amount of time.

Ane enjoyed herself immensely, especially since some parts of the pool were shallow enough for her to stand in. She also spent a great deal of time “swimming” with either me or the Webmaster. She’s never had formal swimming lessons. When we asked her about it after the party tonight, she was ambivalent – even though she LOVED the pool.

Our biggest surprise of the evening was Tad. He clung to the Webmaster going into the pool. It was big and deep and noisy with a lot of kids in it – we could tell that he was scared and intimidated by it all. So we let him cling to us, and he gradually warmed up to the experience. I was just walking the pool with him, just bouncing up and down and gradually getting him wetter and wetter – until I realized that he had let go of me with one hand and was now gleefully splashing.

He got so comfortable in the water that he was standing alone (with us in arm’s reach) on a step that allowed him to stand waist-deep in the water. By the time the party was ending, I had wrapped him in one of those foam noodle things and was pulling him around in it (taking turns with the Webmaster), letting him pretend to “swim.” He had a huge smile on his face. It was so wonderful to see him. He’s too young to take a swimming class, but I’m thinking some more of this one-on-one time on these family nights would be a great thing for him.

Oh, and Ane sobbed hysterically when the lifeguards called everyone out of the pool because it was time to close up. She sobbed in the locker room. She actually went back to the pool in street clothes because she wanted to stay (many thanks to Best Baby-sitter for getting her out of there while I was still getting dried off). She cried all the way to the car. She finally calmed down on the way home.

So, she likes swimming, but we need to work on the concept of “they are closing and we will have to come back another time.”

And Tad definitely needs to go swimming again. He fell asleep immediately at bedtime. Think of all the energy he would burn! And all the aerobic exercise I would get! I call that a win-win.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 12:57 am and is filed under Children, Group o' Friends.
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