Boy, will I miss every Saturday morning in the pool (heavy on the sarcasm). I now get at least 8 months off before kid 2 will be ready for the pool. Yay!!!
So, we worked on Kendall swimming on her own, and listening to the instructor. At the end of the June parent tot session, we brought Kendall over to the next class to "test the waters". I walked over to the other side of the pool with Kendal and our parent tot instructor, and we introduced Kendall to the new class. In under 5 minutes Kendall had ditched me, started talking to the other kids and following what the new instructor said. Interesting since she fails to listen to me most of the time. Needless to say, my worries that my little girl would not be able to make the emotional jump to the big kid class were all for naught - she jumped right in and never looked back.
We have been in the big kid class for about a month now, and although she is shy initially an needs a little push to go join her class, she get into it after a couple minutes. Kendall is he youngest in the class - this class is for 3 - 5 year olds before they go to the big pool (she is in about 2 and 1/2 feet of water for the current lessons. The other kids in the class are closer to that 4 - 5 year old mark, so, for once, Kendall looks like the little kid at 2 and 1/2. So used to seeing her as bigger than her classmates, so it is a bit of a shock. We see her taking to the older kids, they don't seem too thrilled by this little chatty kid. I'd love to know what she is saying to them.
The thing about this new class is that there is a lot of standing around. There are usually around 10 kids in the class, and 2 instructors, so the kids hang onto the side of the pool while the instructors work with the kids one-on-one. This leads to Kendall getting in trouble a lot. There is the splashing, which was encouraged in the parent tot class, but is not so well looked upon in the big kid class. Kendall tends to instigate this and gets the other kids doing it with her - definitely frowned upon. And then there is the whole, hold onto the side thing.
All the kid are instructed to hold onto the side of the pool when they are not working with the instructor. Pretty boring stuff -especially when you are tall enough to stand with your head above the water. Kendall must think so too, because she has made a game out of angering in the life guard. There are several life guards that monitor the pool area, but there is this one boy, must be 16 or 17, who takes his life guarding job very seriously. Every time he sees Kendall with her hand off the side of the pool he comes over and yells at her. After Kendall got talked to the first couple of times, Nate and I started to notice her waiting until he would turn around, taking her hands off the side of the pool, waving them around, and then putting them back on the side just as the life guard turned back around. Bad behavior, yes, but extremely funny. Remind me to put bars on this kid's windows, she will be the one sneaking out.
