... i held my breath...

It's been a long week, because it started snowing last Saturday (during a race I was doing), and continued, off and on, through Thursday. Monday was a school holiday (Martin Luther King's Birthday), Tuesday they went to school, Weds/Thurs/Fri were snow days. Every day was a long one for the parent left home. (I worked from home on Monday and took the girls sledding - more on that in another post), I went to work Tuesday, worked from home Weds, went to work Thurs and Fri. M went mostly a bit stir-crazy.

M's been taking the girls to swim at her club for several months now, and telling me that they're doing really well. Some Sunday mornings K and L will come back excited to tell me that they swam to their mom, or jumped from the side of the pool to a noodle, or dove down to the last step to get a swim toy. M too has been keeping me posted on progress, but I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, until this weekend.

But we all went to the club on Sunday and I got to witness the swimming. And I was impressed.

The last time I saw the girls swim, they were clinging to us, insisting on holding on, maybe grabbing one stroke as they crossed a 2-foot gap between one of us and the wall. On Sunday I watched them both jumping off the side of the pool (no noodles), swimming 10 and more feet, diving down (or trying to, in the case of L, our resident cork). It was impressive. So much so that I took several videos, only one of which I'll inflict on you.

And so much so that a woman there with her own 2 children asked me how long the girls had been swimming and how they'd learned. I told her that M had been doing a lot of work with them, and that they'd also started watching a mermaid show (which I'm convinced encouraged them to start putting their heads under water in the bathtub). The show itself is dreck, but if it contributed to their comfort in the water, then I'm willing to put up with it. Even though it's no Saddle Club....