Swim Along, Little Doggy

These pictures are SO misleading, and it's the wonder of blogger that of course they are in reverse chronological order which means Mommy is going to somehow have to cleverly craft our swim lesson story backwards. No worries, Mommy is always up for a challenge. That all started when she married Daddy, and then had us two wonderful little peanuts. We digress (as usual). As mentioned in earlier posts I started "big girl" swim lessons a few weeks ago. Today was week 3. These pictures are from Week 1.
You would know these pictures are from the first week because here, I am actually smiling, instead of screaming my head off like I did today - incessantly and nonstop - because I'm 3, and I can. Mommy heard from someone that she was quite similar when she took swim lessons at this age, but my Babi had a secret weapon and that was a camera. Instead of being behind the camera like she is now, Mommy loved to be in front of it - loved it. It was the quickest way to diffuse a tantrum for Babi and Duda (though Babi actually informed Mommy just yesterday that she never had a tantrum when she was little. She saved those for high school.)
And here, shockingly and completely unbelievable to anyone who saw me today - I am listening to my instructor. *GASP!*
And here, actually excited to get in the pool vs. kickingscreamingbeggingfightingcryingwailingsobbingpanicking as I did today. And how heartless is Mommy?

She laughed at me. LAUGHED! I mean, hell, what else can she do? I'm having the mother of all tantrums and it's lasting a full 30 minutes and everyone - I mean EVERYONE in the pool area and Mommy's vicinity are staring at her as if to say, "Well, are you going to do SOMETHING?" What can she do? I mean, really. What do you do? It's not like Mommy can pull me out of swim lessons and just say, "Looks like ya don't like swimming, let's try another important life skill like gymnastics." NO! It's KIND OF IMPORTANT to learn how to swim (or at the very least, at this point Mommy's just hoping I learn how to doggy paddle to the side of the pool - which won't serve me very well if I'm in say, a lake or something!) So Mommy sat right by the pool, clapped at me while I was screaming and laughed at me when my back was turned; deliberately avoided my gaze in the hopes that maybe the lack of attention would get me to stop wailing; avoided the gaze of every single person who gaped at her in open-mouthed disbelief at what a drama child I can be; and then nodded politely when my teacher said at the end of class:

"You might want to try not being here for the next class - maybe watch from that window in the lap pool where she can't see you?"

"Yes," Mommy said, "yes, why don't we try that?"

Love,

Lilly and Anna