Learning to Swim

Today is the day!

Dive toys are a great incentive!

Until this year, our family has not been around pools during the summer that much so I had not ventured into swimming lessons. I don't agree or follow everything the AAP recommends, but the Academy's recommendation about no swimming lessons until age 4 was a convenient guideline for me to follow and easier on the checkbook. However, this year has been DESTINATION POOLSIDE!!! Thanks to awesome friends, our weeks this summer have been filled with the best pools around town. Additionally, after five years, our neighbor decided this was the year to give us complete access with gate code to her beautiful pool. It's like walking into our own backyard and such a blessing.

We had gone a couple of times to different pools for a playdate and Hannah noticed that her sweet little friends were able to go under water and swim. She decided after those two times that she was going to do that. It was indescribably fun to watch her. She would think about it and watch them and then she DID IT. Just like that. No lesson, no coaxing, just did it. Underwater. I was so excited you would think she had just learned to walk and was taking her first step. I wasn't expecting that because I had been hearing all the horror stories, and painful time my friends had had at swimming lessons. I just assumed we would take lessons next summer and that I had to go through that. My first born is always surprising me with things like this. When we got in the car to go home the day she decided to do this I told her I was so proud of her and that she taught herself to swim all by herself and that she didn't need swimming lessons. Hannah said, "Mommy, I still need swimming lessons with a real teacher!"

Kay giving her some support after being the catalyst for Hannah going under

All smiles after going under

Miss Independent didn't miss a beat either