OUR LITTLE WATER BABY

For seven years I worked as a lifeguard. I cleaned up more fecal matter than I every thought possible (until I had a baby), yelled at more people than I ever dreamed possible (I don't yell at the baby) and hated teaching baby swimming lessons more than anything else possible. Every time they handed out the lesson assignments, I prayed a little prayer that I wouldn't be teaching the water babies. I found that the time went so painfully slow, I was uncomfortable singing out loud (it's still not good) and all of the parents were scared to put their own babies under the water so they would hand them over to me to blow in their faces and dunk them underneath. Sure, I had training and I was pretty good at it, but I don't know if anyone else was more awkward with the actual baby part than I was. I hated water babies.

Today, something unthinkable happened. Lauren and I went for our first swimming lesson with the Infant Development Program and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE! It was so fun to explore the water with Lauren. She had absolutely no fear. I didn't expect anything else because she loves the bath, the shower and yesterday she was running/quickly tottering through the sprinkler. I think that I would have done much better teaching water babies if someone told me that parents don't care how badly you sing (I swear they are wincing at something else) or how many times you do the same thing, they just love exploring the water with their baby. So today I sang badly and had Lauren jump in from the edge over and over and over again and we loved it. Lauren's favourite water activities were getting spun around quickly, being thrown way up in the air and screaming when she had to give up the penguin (ahh, baby temper tantrums). I can't wait until next week!