The swimmer

It is amazing with kids how some things seem to to happen over night. At the beginning of the summer Connor seemed ages away from swimming on his own. He was a good little soldier in swim lessons, but was still very apprehensive about being in the water and showed no signs of being able to keep afloat on his own, let alone get from one place to another. All summer he's been in a swim vest, which works great, but we did wonder if it was good to have him relying on that. Since we went to Nonni and Diddy's in June he has been very brave about jumping in the water by himself, which we took as a good sign. And then, just in the past three weeks, he has started wearing goggles and putting his face in the water while he paddles along. Then, the other day we went to the Y which doesn't allow swim vests. Well, little bunny just launched himself off the steps put his face in the water paddled around and swam back to the steps! Bunny can swim! He proceeded to swim back and forth between us about 100 times, all with a gigantic grin on his face.

He now seems to advancing every time he gets in the water. He looks like a little fish, twisting this way and that to look around under water and turning around and changing directions in a flash. He can really motor along surprisingly fast. Best of all, though, is the fact that he can now jump into the water by himself, come up, and swim to the side. This really augurs a new era of parental bliss: from the moment Jamie was born Sarah has has ongoing nightmares about drowning. They will not ever go away completely, and we will remain vigilant, but there's no denying the progress.