Proud

We visited some friends in Jersey last weekend. They have a nice community pool and it was a gorgeous day so we spent most of the day there. It’s a very nice big pool, with a separate toddler section and a pretty cool water slide.

The water slide has a height requirement, and when we visited them last year Tori was well below. So I warned her that she still might not be allowed this year (she’s 5). And sure enough, she was about two inches too short.

But there’s a loophole. If you can show a lifeguard that you can swim a full length of the pool, you can do the slide. The pool isn’t Olympic size, but it’s pretty big. Tori has become a good swimmer, but she’s never gone that far.

What the hell, worth a shot.

So I tell Tori she can flip over to her back, do whatever she needs to, she just can’t touch the side or the lane rope. When Tori swims, she is all legs. We’re working on getting her arm motions better, but in a pinch she goes underwater and just kicks. She loves to swim underwater.

So that’s what she does. She puts her head down, kicks underwater for about ten feet, then pops up for a breath. And again. And again. Really, barely using her arms at all.

At the halfway point it’s obvious she can keep this up all day. The lifeguard watching her just says, “she’s got it”. Doing a length was total cake for her. I was quite proud.

And she spent the rest of the afternoon on the water slide…