It is oh-so-hot here in Texas. I mean really really hot. I can’t quite let go of the idea that it’s May and too hot to exercise outside already! Unless, of course, you are energetic enough to rise before the sun (which I am most definitely not) or brave enough to venture out at night (again, I’m a wimp). So we are forced to turn to the pool for our relief. Poor us, I know.

At first, Addison was petrified of the pool. She hated how cold it was (at a blazing 87 degrees) and shivered very dramatically and begged to be let out. But eventually either due to the increase in heat outside, temp of the water or just time, she has come to love the water again. At least a little.

There remains the serious problem of the SPLASHING of the water. Do you remember me talking about how much Addison hates tears? Apparently just about as much as she hates water splashed in her face. She also hates showers incidentally. In generally if the water is FALLING on her and not pooled AROUND her, there is a problem. If it is getting on her face and, heaven forbid, in her eyes, there is a big BIG problem. I taught her to blink away the pool water but she mostly just grimaces and blinks constantly the whole time we’re in the pool if she isn’t squeezing her eyes tightly shut to avoid the offense to begin with. Very dramatic. The result is that she isn’t really keen on doing any of the really fun stuff like jumping into the water (which she tried once and loved until she noticed the spashes on her face) or going down our make-shift water slide (same). She wants sooo badly to do those things but the mere idea of the resulting splash makes her quit after the first try

{coaxing}

Finally we wizened up and bought her goggles. Duh. We let her chose the color she wanted and guess what? She chose pink. So now we have this lovely look going on:

Eventually she gets sick of them until she gets even more sick of the splashing again. Back and forth, back and forth.

Anyway we are having a lot of fun in the pool every day. Most notably Noah has learned to swim!

{resembles a tenacious dog!}

This is totally amazing to me because last fall he absolutely would not get his face wet: not even a few bubbles on the water’s surface. This spring? There is no holding him back. In a few short practice periods in the pool he has learned to swim proficiently enough to swim the full length and width of the pool, to jump in and swim across, to slide in and swim across, to dive to the bottom, etc. Last night he was working very hard on mastering an underwater somersault. This breakneck learning pace totally blows my mind. He still can’t stand to get water up his nose but hates wearing a full mask even more. But I finally feel like I could probably take him to the public pool to swim without worrying too much about needing to be right there next to him. Good thing we didn’t invest in swim lessons - that would have been money wasted.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with our Bilibos in the water. They make especially good water sliders:

And speaking of the public pool, one of the things I love so much about where I live is that we have SO MANY public pools. I think there are like 12 in my little community alone, all with a different theme and different features. Some with diving boards, some with play structures in the water, some with flume slides, body slides, etc. A very large pool is opening soon with a lazy river. Yeah, I’m totally excited. Before I moved here I made jokes that this place is like a cult - they let you in and provide everything you need so you never have to leave. Now that I’m here I realize that isn’t far from the truth. Creepy.

On the topic of fish, I’ve mentioned Addison’s undying love for all things Nemo. She calls the movie “Daddy Fish” and as far as she’s concerned, Marlin is the staring role. She could care less about Nemo. Its a movie about how Daddy Fish loses his baby fish and finds him again with the help of Daddy Fish’s friend Dori (sometimes called Dora or Dorin - very confusing all these similar names!). Unfortunately there is very little “Daddy Fish” stuff out there so while she has some Nemo cups and temporary tatoos that feature the full cast of characters, they are all suspiciously missing Daddy Fish. And we used to trick her by telling her that the Nemo on all of those things WAS the Daddy Fish but that doesn’t work anymore. She knows the difference (the gimpy fin gives it away). Why do they have to have the starfish and the seahorse but no Daddy Fish?! No fair!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am and is filed under Photos & Videos, Things I Love, Venting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.