My Daughter, A Bird The Fish

Well, my baby isn’t a baby anymore, nope she is actually a little fish, a Pike to be exact. We signed up A Bird for swim lessons at the YMCA a little before her birthday in May. The first class was basically just getting kids used to the water and there were little tiny babies like 4 months old up to 3 years olds and parents got in the water with the kids. There were three instructors and they would instruct parents as a group as to what to do to get the kids used to the water, then they would break the class into free time and then meet with each parent and child individually. It took A Bird about 3 classes before she was a completely different child in the water.


She had swam in my Dad’s pool last year, so it wasn’t like she had never been in the water, but in previous years she had clung to me or L Bird like bulldog on a pork chop. In just three classes, the transformation was huge. She was swimming by herself, with a floatie of course, but swimming out in the pool a few feet from L Bird, she was sticking her face underwater, and with some assistance from the instructor swimming under water. It became pretty obvious that her confidence in the water was progressing, she holds her breath and routinely jumps off the dive blocks into the deep end. She goes underwater, then pops up and wipes the water and hair from her eyes while she is swimming towards the side to get out and do it again. That course came to the end and the instructor gave a swim test to all of the older kids to see if they were ready to graduate up to the next class. A Bird was one of three kids to move up into the next class. She is officially a pike.

As a Pike, it is her, four other kids and a lifeguard instructor in the pool. She listens to directions and swims on her own with the other kids in one lane of the pool. It is amazing to see how big she has grown and just all that she can and keeps accomplishing.

We have been in the middle of a heat wave, like most of the country. Yesterday the official temperature was 99°F, but I saw temperatures on the bank clocks of 100-101°F. The heat was just oppressive, so we went out to my Dad’s house for dinner and a dip in the pool. So this is A Bird jumping in the pool and swimming. She is also putting her face in the water and stretching her body out to swim stroke her way through the pool. It is just awesome.

P.S. - She thought it was hysterical that everyone was grossed out by her eating that boogie.