Wednesday, June 11, 2008

back to the pool

Today my friend came to the pool with us to watch Raine's swimming lessons. She doesn't have kids, and her niece and nephew live far from her, so she does the vicarious aunt thing with Raine. They both seem to enjoy it.

The pool that Raine is having her lessons at this summer is a new one. The old pool was finally unrepairable. This one is behind some tennis courts and not right on a busy street. It is also a good kiddie pool. It has that beach kind of construction with an area that you can really just walk out of the pool at... then it deepens, but only to about 3.5 to 4 feet deep. There are splashy fountain things in this area so the pool is good for cooling off, wet play. There is a set of about 5 lap lanes and an area where there is about a one story slide with a double curve (kind of a figure 8 I think) that has a landing zone that is roped off from the rest of the pool.

Now, Raine loves the water, and is not afraid of it at all. This is her third year of swimming lessons, and she is really getting the hang of it (the first 2 years were "preschool" kinds of lessons, getting the kids to go underwater, starting to float, etc). This year she is really starting to swim. Its only a few strokes at a time, but her feet are up and kicking, and she moves, so it is good. At the end of the lessons, some of the other classes were getting to go down the slide, but Raine's instructor had not taken them down it. He had two or three kids who really seemed afraid in the water, AND the kids were really cold in the pool, and he had a hard time keeping them in for the whole lesson last week. This week, it has warmed - HEATED - up, and the kids are doing really well. Raine kept asking me when they were going to go down the slide. I told her to ask her instructor. She finally did (good job!) and he asked the other kids if they wanted to go on the slide, and it was unanimous. They headed up the stairs.

I mentioned that the slide is about 1 story tall, right? Raine doesn't have any problem with water, but she does have a hard time with heights. She won't climb in the play sets at the fast-food restaurants. She will go on a slide at the playground, although some of the higher ones she has to work up to. Well, she climbed right up those stairs and slid right down the slide and had a great time at it.

Today they got to go again, and at the end of the firs slide, when the lifeguard who was "catching" put her on the side of the pool, she exulted, "That was AWESOME!" and she jumped up and down and clapped, and made happy noises (as only a 5-year-old can do), all the way back up the stairs, while she was waiting for her turn and as she was sliding back down. Yes, I could hear them from across the pool. I guess it was really, really fun.

2 comments:

Fran said...

She just darted up, despite her fear of heights? Outstanding! Yay, Raine!

Dina said...

Well, I think it also has to do with how fixed and sturdy thing seem... the flights of stairs are quite solidly built, and so is the slide. Today she was disappointed that she only got three turns, because she really wanted five.