Today I took a day off and went to "Swim Tots" with Hayley and Oliver. Our friends Sarah and Tony also came with their duaghter who is about the same age as Oliver.
The class consisted of sitting in the very warm shallow pool and splashing about to nursery rhymes under the direction of a dude who looked like he'd be more at home on a snowboard than leading a dozen babies in sing-song, but nonetheless he did a sterling job of it.
The culmination of the half hour session was a trip into the deeper "plunge pool" where the end of "The grand old duke of York" and "Ring a ring of Roses" was marked by dunking the babies completely under water! I wasn't at all convinced we'd manage to do this, but the instructor gave us a handy tip: to blow in the baby's face just as we are about to dunk him which causes him to screw up his face and hold his breath in surprise. To my relief this seemed to work and Oliver simply blinked a bit when he reappeared from his very brief dunking (and rest assured it was very brief indeed). We repeated this a couple of times with the same result.
He enjoyed the whole time in there. At one point we took him in the jacuzzi and he just lay back on my arms looking up at the ceiling. I think all those fun bath-times must have done some good. Hopefully he will grow to love the water and it will hold no fear for him if we keep taking him from now on.
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