Tio and Tia came for brunch and pooltime today after our rained out Strawberry church day. Thankfully, the skies cleared- both for the festival, and also for our favorite after church pool time! Today was extra special because Aiden was particularly bold and brave...or maybe he was just showing off for his Tio and Tia! After a bit of our showing his bubbles and jumping in and kicking, Aiden decided he was going to do "swinging" at the steps. He would hold onto the top step, push away and then kick back to it- most of the time holding on. Well, I think the magic started happening when he pushed a bit to hard and lost grip of the step and really had to kick to get back to it- sometimes I would give him a little push, but a few times he felt himself let go and knew he had to work to get back! Then, he didn't want my help- so he had a few big gulps of water when he pushed away too hard and went under as he lost his grip- but never was it traumatic- it was such a fun game that the coughing a sputtering was more painful for me than it was for him! And within about 5 minutes of that "swinging" game, he turned out to the pool and realized that he could do the same thing if he swam out! Sure enough, it was magic! So yes, he has his safety seal on, which is keeping him afloat, but really he's gotta work to keep his face up out of the water. Within just a few tries of doing it "by self," he was brave enough to swim from the stairs to the number 5, and then the next swim was from the stairs to the ladder. Incredibly brave-and even as I'm writing about it- I still can hardly believe what progress he's made in the pool in just the last few weeks, and really only 1 or 2 days a week! The greatest thing about today, was that I had to pull him out- he was kicking for "2 more jumps, 1,2,3,4,5 more jumps!" So wonderful thinking back to the pain and agony it was just convincing him to be in the water last year at this time! Wow!
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