Swimming

My kids have been taking swimming lessons at the nearby swim school for a while now, 30 minute classes which consisted of a number of water activities and basic swim strokes. With the arrival of my sister and her 10-month old boy here to visit for the holidays, we decided she would bring her boy and I, my little girl for a quick trip to the nearby Aquatic center to see how well they would behave and more importantly, how long her little boy would want to stay in the water.

There were a number of pools at the Aquatic center. And it was not as crowded as we had expected, possibly as some schools were still in session (thankfully). We started off at the shallow pool (max 0.7 M) and Sebastian looked to be enjoying himself, especially when he noticed his cousin Kaitlyn was happily splashing about the water.

Kaitlyn was particularly excited that she could actually touch the floor of the pool with her feet, as all her lessons were conducted with me as her "life-pole". She happily climbed in and out the pool, and on a few occasions, slipped on the floor, and would splash about ferociously as she forgot she could actually 'put her feet down' and stand up!

After 15 minutes of us adults sitting on the pool floor, we decided to venture to the wave pool next. It was much colder, as the pool ranged from 0M to about 2M (I'm not precisely sure about that deep end, but it was deep enough that some teenagers there had to paddle to keep afloat).

Sebastian and Kaitlyn were happy to kick water at each other for a few minutes, but as they had not started the waves yet, we decided to go to the next pool. This pool was the toddler play pool and had a number of swirls and bubbles in some places, with water spouts and fountains in others. The "bubbles" (think 'spa') was a popular spot, as most of the mothers sat and chatted there. The spots with water being endlessly sprayed did not go on too well, we could hardly see with all the water being 'rained' on us. We were just about to give up, when the horn sounded that the waves were about to start on the wave pool. Back we ran.

My sis and Sebastian stayed near the shallow end, while Kaitlyn and I ventured nearer to the middle. As the waves started rolling, Kaitlyn started to giggle whenever a wave approached us and we bounced up and over it. However after about a minute, and the waves started coming in full force, I decided to move closer to the shallow end, which took considerable energy with the waves beating at my back. Kaitlyn was enjoying herself thoroughly with the waves splashing into her face, and she would move towards each approaching wave ready to jump at it. After a few more minutes, she decided to take refuge behind my back, giggling madly whenever a particularly strong wave would bowl me over. I shudder to think how I would control all 3 kids if my boys were here as well, though it would have been huge fun.

The waves lasts 15 minutes, but we were back in the shallow pool way before then, tired from the exertion of holding on to our respective child. We had been in the water about 40 minutes now, though it felt like hours of swim time. Kaitlyn found an abandoned swim board and decided to play with it. I tried to reason with her that she was to put her body on it to float. But she had other ideas. She grabbed the board, got out of the pool, and proceeded to the edge of the pool. There, she placed the board on the water edge, letting it float on the water. And then, to my surprise, decided to step onto it. I was near enough to immediately pull her before she had fully submerged. She was puzzled why it didn't work, she had been expecting to be able to surf! That was when we decided we had had enough of the water, and bundled the kids off home.