Kiddie Pool

Yesterday was a big day for the girls. Sage, who is  4, has always been a water baby. She can swim on her back and front, and I think she could probably swim about 25 yards without help if she really tried. She can swim down to probably 5 feet deep to retrieve objects. She doesn't swim any strokes, just doggy-paddle at this point, but she is able to take a breath and continue swimming.
Fern has always been more hesitant of water, and we have had to be careful with her in the water as well. She had 12 ear infections her first year of life, so spending time at the pool was never a priority then. We had to be careful with her in the bath tub also, so as not to get dirty water in her ears.

When Sage was a baby, we would purposely put her laying on her back in a couple inches of water for her bath time, and we started that at about 2-3 months of age (sorry, naked baby pic). She LOVED having the water in her ears and moving her arms and legs around, and she has never had an ear infection:

Fern never got that early immersion experience, and I think it definitely effected her comfort level with water. However, after setting up my birth pool for them to swim in yesterday, she took off in her skills. She jumped underwater and put her face in a million times. When we went to swim at the public pool last night, she jumped into the water and swam to me on her own, she pushed off the wall and swam a couple feet to me, and in the area where she could walk, she was going under and swimming around!

Yesterday was another day I wish I could have shared with my mom. She taught all of us kids how to swim, and was the one who really stressed the importance of early immersion. She was a swim instructor for years, and active on all of our swim teams. She really valued the ability to swim, and the magic and mystery that being underwater and in the water provides. I wish I could have seen her excitement and joy at Fern's new skills. I know she is in heaven seeing it all, but it would have been so nice to share that moment with her and the girls.