Little Swimmer

This morning was our first experiment with swimming starting with classes at the YMCA. I wasn't sure Elisa would be thrilled about all the gear that goes with it, so I let her play dress up at home first. Here she is trying on her new swimsuit.

And now for the tricky part...all the kids (and adults) have to wear swim caps in the pool. I bought a cute fishy one that I was hoping she would like because of the design. Yeah, right.

After about 10 seconds of me cooing and oohing and trying to get her to like it (I even tried showing her in the mirror), Elisa was done with the cap.
One last yank and it was off!

Luckily, we had another cap that was bigger and stretchier (thank God for lycra!) and that seemed to stay put during the class. I was a little afraid of her mood going into this because she woke around 6:50 a.m. and was acting tired before we left the house at 9 a.m. But she persevered and we managed to get in the water (a comfortable, if cool, 85 degrees) and splash around for 30 minutes. When I first saw the class was only a half hour I thought I was getting a bit ripped off. But now I'm pretty sure that's all these kids can take. None of them seemed too thrilled about the water, but they mostly hung on. Elisa was chattering with blue lips after about 10 minutes so I did my best to keep her near and try to warm her up. She definitely likes the water and some of the activities were okay for her--a few kicks and a bit of back and forth to the ropes. When I had to practice blowing bubbles with my mouth to show her, she got it right away exclaiming "BUBBLES!!!!" Yeah, that's my girl.