Swimming with friends

Willa has gotten so much more adventurous in the swimming pool. Soon after she started jumping in with Ryan, I took the girls to the pool again with a friend. Her son is just a few months older than Willa. Willa always complains to me that she likes playing with GIRLS and Austin complains to his mom that he likes playing with BOYS, but too bad kids, because when the moms are friends then you are stuck with each other. When they are together they actually get along pretty well, and my friend and I both think it's important for them to be able to play with lots of different kids. Sadly, they are moving at the end of the month to Utah and so now I won't have a close friend who will respond to my texts of, "I'm going crazy! We are headed to the park NOW!" and meet us there in fifteen minutes. I'm all for planning playdates, but kids are really unpredictable and the day you plan something they might wake up early and need an early nap or be still asleep or something. I kind of fly by the seat of my pants a lot and whoever can keep up is a very good friend whom I really appreciate.

Anyway, since Austin is a boy and a few months older, he's a little more confident in the pool, which has been great because Willa really wants to do what he is doing and she pushes herself a little more and more out of her comfort zone. Austin even will take time explaining how to do a particularly challenging skill - like jumping into the "deep" area (4-5 feet) and pushing off the bottom of the pool with your feet to come back up!

I love how weird they both look with their goggles on.

Another day that same week we went to another friend's pool and there were older kids again and because of their example and fearlessness Willa started jumping off the diving board and swimming to the edge of the pool. I never thought she would attempt it, but she watched them a few times and then got a little closer and closer. She tried it wearing her ring first, but then I talked her into doing it without the ring and she did great. This video is only the second time she did it, so she's going off the side closer to the stairs, but pretty quickly she started jumping straight out and then swimming to the edge.

It has helped that we can go swimming so much. It's basically the only outdoor activity in the summer and some days we go four or five times a week for several hours at a time. She made the most progress all in one week where she was around it a lot. I noticed since our trip to Utah that she's a smidgen less brave because we weren't around the pool much there. We will see what the cooler weather brings (if it arrives at all). It's hard to imagine that in a few weeks it will be nice enough to go to the park on a regular basis and all the pools will be closed.