Little Fish

We have logged many hours of pool time this summer.  Tessa just loves to be in the water.  Her favorite game is to play dolphin.  She holds on to my shoulders and we dive under water, swim, surface and dive again.  She can hold her breath for a very long time.  We do laps around the pool until Momma is worn out.  Then we float and relax.  

She has never been afraid to put her face under water, as she is showing me here.  With just a little help, she can go all the way to the bottom and retrieve her princess dive sticks.  We have been working on diving and Tessa does a great belly flop.  Her new thing she is trying to learn is an underwater flip.  It is so funny to watch her float, put her head down and rear end up.  But she can't quite propel herself over and she doesn't want me to help.    

G&G went swimming with us and we had a great time.  Tea parties at the bottom of the pool make Tessa laugh and Gampa was so funny talking to her underwater.

She is a good swimmer but, unless she is in a float, she still likes the security of someone holding her hand. Usually when she jumps we either hold hands, like G&G are doing, or she jumps by herself and I catch her belly. Each time we swim she gets braver. One day she got real brave and jumped in by herself, only I was not in the water to catch her. Scared the daylights out of me! She popped right up to the surface and was kicking for all she was worth to get back to the wall. I praised her and made a big deal out of what a good job she did and eventually my heartrate returned to normal.  We will both be sad when summer ends.  But our gym has an indoor pool so we can swim all year round.