She did it

Today while we were watching an Olympic commercial about a boy swimming, Anna turned to me and said, "Mommy, me go to the pool and do that all by myself."

I responded, "You go swimming on your belly all by yourself?"

Anna said, "Yes, mommy. All by myself."

I told her I was excited to see it and an hour later we are at the pool. She had brought all her gear; googles (oh my how have I not gotten a picture of those yet?), swim cap, purple puddle jumper float jacket, Dore the Explorer kick board, Strawberry Shortcake and her friends and all the other pool toys. We start in the baby pool and then she looks at us and tells us she's ready for the big pool. We get on the purple float vest and head that way....

As usual, it's a slow entrance into the pool, some wall scaling and then finally swimming with mommy or daddy; this time mommy. I get her comfortable swimming just holding my hands, scale back to having her hold one hand, then my thumb and then I let her float on her own. Expecting a huge scream, I see a huge smile and hear "I do it all by myself!!!! I swim like boy (talking about the commercials)!"

And then she's off..... kicking, scooping with her hands and smiling. Swimming on her own for the first time without holding onto us. Sure she's in a float vest but WOW are we proud!

Then about 30 minutes later she tells me she wants to do the back float. I go to help her and then she says, "NO! All by myself!" And then the little thing flips from floating on her front to floating on her back all by herself. Totally doing the back float in the float vest. Awesome, pure awesome. Oh and that "No, all by myself" stuff continued as she didn't want me to touch her at all as she swam like a little fish.

And afterwards the little girl couldn't have been more proud of herself. On the way home, in between stopping to smell every flower we passed, she kept telling me how she was going to show kate, grama, grammy, henry, etc how she is big now and can swim all on her own. She also said they are going to be so proud of her and how big she is!

Much Love,
Jenny

PS And to think she had never wanted to wear the purple life vest before. It just shows you that when they are ready, they are ready! We just have to provide the tools for them to be comfortable, trusting and ready :) I credit the Olympics for inspiring her :) Thank you USA!

PSS Before tonight I always told the girls they could only go in the big pool when Daddy was swimming with us. Well, now that Anna doesn't require me to help her, it looks like we will have more time in the big pool :)