Fun in the Sun

What a great way to finish the time off work than a nice afternoon in the pool as a family. 

BB has always loved the water.  He is already back to past where he left off last year as far as skills.  He definitely has no fear, but he is learning to be cautious.  He will jump in from the side, go completely under water, and come up smiling.  He can blow bubbles on the surface of the water and can hang on to the side of the pool.  He will float on his back with help.  He doesn't ever want to get out!

Precious is another water baby!  She has always loved her baths.  She will float on her back on my arm in the pool and just kick and splash and have a grand ole time.  She really liked this infant floatation device, especially the auto-shade.

BB and Buddy on the float together.

The big kids are great in the pool and are totally water safe.  They are cautious and helpful with the little ones.  All of them started swimming around two years old.  I kept close to Buddy until about age five, when he could finally swim 25 yards on his own (the diving board test). 

Sweets choosing to make good use of a time out.

Sweets scared the you-know-what out of me when she jumped off the high dive at the YMCA at just four years old!  May has the strength and ability to do swim team, but she doesn't choose to expend the effort. 

I'm frustrated with our YMCA and their policies to reduce risk.  In the last couple of years, they have closed the high diving board completely to everyone except the dive team during practice.  This made Sweets not even want to do dive team anymore, because she gets so frustrated she can't use it any other time.  The one meter board is only open for limited times.  As a result, the kids now prefer swimming at home most of the time. 

Children under nine are not allowed in the pool, even the zero entry kiddie pool, unless an adult over 18 is within arms reach of them.  When we started, it was under seven.  This is extremely frustrating that a teenager can't be in the water, if an adult is present near the pool.  For goodness sake, I practically taught my five year old sister to swim when I was ten!

In addition, the Y no longer provides swimming lessons for two year olds, other than the mom-and-tot classes.  This is really frustrating; almost all of my former two year olds took swimming lessons after I taught them what I could.  This also exposed them to taking direction from someone else, with me watching close behind  Although BB is not ready now, I envision him being ready in about a month, but it doesn't appear to be an option.  I'm really getting tired of so many policies changing because places are afraid of getting sued!