As quite a number of pictures can attest, spending time at the pool with Teddy is one of our favorite activities. It is fun watching Teddy grow more comfortable in the water and develop his own little games. Recently he started "freezing" as he swims. He just stops moving and drifts along for a couple of seconds. Occasionally he does that when he is close enough to me to look me in the eyes (from below the water) and there seems to be a glint in there as he begins to move again and grabs on to my neck.
Today, though, took the cake. We played around a bit, and he swam more than I expected him to. He was a sport and even when he got a bit caught up in the ladder going down to the pool, it didn't phase him much. Eventually, I decided it was time to leave. He was already out of the pool, playing with an inflatable toy. When I said we were leaving, I started heading for the corner of the pool with the steps. Teddy was on the other side (width-wise) of the pool and at that point decided he hadn't quite had enough. He came, sat down on the edge of the pool and plopped himself down into the pool.
At this time, the following should be mentioned:
1. The pool is over three feet deep. Teddy isn't.
2. By just jumping into the water, he had no horizontal momentum.
3. The distance from him to me was a bit more than 5 meters (approx. 17 feet) by my estimation.
That being said, Teddy has made it about twenty feet in the water when pushing off or getting a good horizontal momentum going. Still, he had none of that going for him. Also, because he jumped in the water after I'd said we were going home, I decided I was not going to help him get to me until he'd gotten to the limit of where he could go.
It took him a while to get going forward, so by the time he got to within about a meter of me, he ran out of air. The expected turn of events here is that he tries in a panicky manner to take a breath, goes under the water and I pick a somewhat distressed boy up. The actual turn of events is that he rather calmly got his nose above the water surface, took a quick breath, finished coming to me, and, when picked up, proclaimed in a slightly winded but triumphant voice: "Swimming!"
Good job, little boy!
Teddy will usually swim to a parent, but the steps are lots of fun to play on.
So sometimes we have to go and get him! (And eat him up.)
Mama likes Teddy to try different water toys to see what he does with them. In this circle, he can spin around and around!
Dada tells Teddy how long he'll stay on his back (count of five or count of eight, usually), and also tells him not to kick.
Then Dada lets go!
The tricky part with teaching Teddy to float is that he can already swim.
Our little fishy loves swimming with Dada!
