{"id":87,"date":"2007-03-26T00:25:29","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T04:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=87"},"modified":"2007-03-26T00:25:29","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T04:25:29","slug":"starfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Starfish…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20070324_0073a.jpg\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When E told me she had signed e for swim lessons, my first thought was cool!\u00a0 Erica can learn to swim like the baby on Nirvana’s Nevermind<\/em> CD cover http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:NirvanaNevermindalbumcover.jpg<\/a>… except for the dingly dangly.<\/p>\n

My next thought was- swimming pool full of infants… what happens if there’s an “accident”… and believe me, they will happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enter- swim diapers.\u00a0 Yes, swim diapers.\u00a0 Who comes up with these ideas?\u00a0 Aren’t diapers supposed to absorb liquid?\u00a0 What happens when you immerse one in a swimming pool?\u00a0 Anyways, they seemed to do the job.\u00a0 One swim diaper website advertised that “products are proven to significantly reduce the chances of the deadly E. coli bacteria from being released into water by infants and toddlers.”\u00a0 Lovely.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

The next surprise was when E told me that the swim lessons last 30 min, and occur over the next 9 Saturday AMs.\u00a0 So much for sleeping in.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude41\u00a0<\/p>\n

So how do you teach an infant how to swim,\u00a0what do you do for an entire 30 min lesson, and can I bring my mask\/snorkel?\u00a0 I had no idea.<\/p>\n

E then tells me that I’m going into the pool alone… and that she didn’t want to go in.\u00a0 Alone?\u00a0 Me and e, with a bunch of other mom and tots??\u00a0 sigh…<\/p>\n

Saturday morning comes, it’s pouring rain out, and we pack up for the pool.\u00a0 When we get there, we notice that there’s a Male change room, Female change room, and a Family change room.\u00a0 Family change room?\u00a0 I don’t get it.\u00a0 We haul our stuff there, and yes, the room was packed with kids of all ages plus their parents trying to change, shower, etc.\u00a0 There are big stalls that the entire family can go in to change and shower.\u00a0 Still, after years of understanding that “boys go in there; girls go over there” I feel a bit uncomfortable at the setup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luckily we changed e into her swimsuit and swimdiaper beforehand, so she’s set to go.\u00a0 I had to hunt around for an open locker\/stall\u00a0while dodging kids and strollers and other parents.<\/p>\n

Enter the chaos. When we get to the pool area, it was\u00a0crowded like Superstore on a Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 The pool was packed with lessons of all sorts.\u00a0 Chairs were setup all around the pool, 2 or 3 rows deep so\u00a0fully clothed parents could sit, watch, and take pics of their kids.\u00a0 And every chair was taken up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I asked a lifeguard where to go, and he pointed to the\u00a0Starfish sign where 7\u00a0other babies\/parents were gathered.\u00a0 Our instructor, Teresa, is an asian\u00a0girl in her 20s.\u00a0 E says she’s cute.\u00a0 Hmm, maybe this won’t be\u00a0so bad after all.\u00a0\u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

So, lots of other babies… from 6 mos to about 14 months in age.\u00a0 All wearing swim diapers and looking a bit bewildered.\u00a0 I couldn’t blame e for looking all around as there was so much\u00a0to take in.\u00a0\u00a0We all wade into the shallow area,\u00a0and have a seat.\u00a0 The water is nice and warm.\u00a0 I’m thinking, ok so we now take turns diving to the bottom\u00a0to\u00a0retrieve a weighted soother or something like that…\u00a0Nope.\u00a0\u00a0As\u00a0Teresa explains, we’ll pretty much do the same thing every week and do lots of\u00a0repitition cuz babies don’t really remember that much, especially since lessons are once a week.\u00a0 The first thing we start off is with a song.\u00a0 Song??\u00a0\u00a0Singing??\u00a0 What about the front crawl or breast stroke?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude10<\/p>\n

First song is “The wheels on the bus go round and round.”\u00a0 Of course I don’t know all the words, I though it was “wheels on the bus go round and round….\u00a0 all day long”\u00a0 In fact it’s “all through the town.”\u00a0 And of course I don’t know all the other verses… like the “wipers on the bus go swish swish swish” and “the babies on the bus go wah wah wah!”\u00a0 Yes I felt like going “wah wah wah”… incidently I had a chuckle as I remember Jim Dickson saying, after riding BC Transit on a hot day “the people on the bus stink like sweat….”<\/p>\n

Erica seemed really happy\/smiley when she saw everyone around her singing and having a good time.\u00a0 We tried “bubbles” exercise…\u00a0where we’re trying to get them to blow in the water.\u00a0\u00a0e stuck her mouth in the water and tried to\u00a0drink it.\u00a0 Then she stuck her tongue out and tried to taste it.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude10<\/p>\n

After that, we went over to the deeper end, and sang “Motorboat, motorboat” “Ring around the Rosie” and “Humpty dumpty.”\u00a0 We\u00a0put them on the edge of the pool and got them used to\u00a0jumping in.\u00a0\u00a0Other exercises had them float on their\u00a0tummy or\u00a0float on\u00a0their backs.\u00a0 It seemed that each infant took turns crying because they got water in their eyes or too much in their mouths.\u00a0 I had\u00a0e too close the water on her front, and i think\u00a0she took in a good mouthful.\u00a0 Then I had an upset baby to deal with.\u00a0 All in all, I think\u00a0she had a lot of fun.\u00a0 She did lots of kicking and splashing with her arms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was surprised at how much these babies liked and could adapt to the water.\u00a0 I suppose it’s natural, as they spent 9 months in a watery environment, and there’s absolutely no fear for them.<\/p>\n

On another note, it seems like my Winter conditioning and muscle building program is paying off… it’s only March and I’m ready for the beaches.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"20070324_0080a.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 When E told me she had signed e for swim lessons, my first thought was cool!\u00a0 Erica can learn to swim like the baby on Nirvana’s Nevermind CD cover http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:NirvanaNevermindalbumcover.jpg… except for the dingly dangly. My next thought was- swimming pool full of infants… what happens if there’s an “accident”… and believe me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}