Swimmin' Like A Fish

Another huge improvement this summer is Katie's confidence in swimming.  My mother has a pool at her apartment and the girls have gone swimming with her a few times without me, and suddenly almost all of Kate's clinging anxiety in the water is gone!  She like to wear arm floaties, but says she doesn't need the swim vests anymore.  In Grandma's pool she will swim the entire length down to the 6' mark and back (of course I always stay close when she goes that deep).  She has been attempting to float on her back, though that is still pretty scary when her head actually hits the water, but she tries!  For the past several years she has always insisted that I actually hold her whenever we were in the water, or that she at least hold onto one of my arms the whole time. 

Last time we were at Grandma's pool with all the cousins I was bouncing Kate up in the air a little, in and out of the water, when I accidentally threw her a little too high and she went under when she came back down (though only for a second, as I pulled her right back up).  It startled her, of course, but she didn't freak out or cry as she surely would have before.  She was actually pretty proud of it and wanted to know if everyone had seen it!  She nervously allowed me to do it two more times to show Grandma and an Aunt.

Our apartment complex has a pool as well and this summer is the first I've been able to take the girls and let them play in it without having to be in it with them.  They both stay safely in the 3' end and just sort of bob around. Katie is even willing to forgo the floaties in our pool now and is very proud of being able to walk around all on her own,  especially since big sister Melanie refuses to.  It is so nice to be able to just supervise their water play without having to be Katie's anchor the whole time anymore!

Catching up to date

Wow, it's been way too long between posts!  We were without internet for the whole month of June and then had out-of-state family visiting for a week, and now it seems July has almost gotten away from me as well!  We've been having a pretty good summer.  Quite a difference from our struggles last year and the memory of the bad times are already fading.

This is the first year Katie has had the coordination to pedal her bike!  Until now she would only sit on her tricycle and push it with her feet on the ground, like a young toddler does. Now she's outgrown the tricycle and moved up to her sister's 2-wheeler (with training wheels).

She is still rather nervous getting on and off, as it is unstable and wobbly, and she  insists that I hold on to her or the handle bar to help her feel steady at first, but after she has ridden for a while she feels confident enough to go on her own.  We don't really have a very good area for her to ride at our apartments, just the parking lot and garage area, which are incredibly uneven.  So she has a hard time keeping herself going sometimes, and once she loses her initial momentum it is hard for her restart, lots of frustration, but also lots of pride!  She really took off when we took the bike to my sister's house with a nice long, even sidewalk! As I write this I'm feeling a bit guilty because she was really making progress, but now she hasn't ridden for several weeks.  I'll have to get her back out there because she was really enjoying the confidence it gave her.