My Water Babies

The first time I took Russell to the pool was when he was just 6 months old. I could tell that he loved it because he was splashing and kicking happily sitting in his floatie. We took him to our friends' private pool  at least once a month. Pat and Rodney have two boys and they love playing with Russell eventhough they were a few years older.

Then one day I chanced upon a book; Water Baby: A First Fun Book of Water Skills by Lauren Heston. It has lots of beautiful pixs of babies swimming and their eyes were opened wide in the water! I was fascinated and bought it. It has clear guides and steps on teaching your babies to hold their breadth automatically before dipping their heads in the water and how we can help them gain confident and freedom swimming on their own. After reading it I was so excited because instead of just dipping in the pool and lazing around watching Russell play, I could actually do something useful and fun.

Well, it was fun indeed. Especially watching him enjoy our 'lessons'. When he was about 18mths old, we bought an underwater disposable camera and took precious pixs of him in the water.

Unfortunately, we didn't take the same kind of photos of Jonah. But Jonah is a 'dugong'. He can sit in the pool daydream all day if I allow him to. He loves the weightlessness and cool feeling that the water gives. He enjoys sitting in the pool, jaccuzzi, the inflatable wading pool, in the ocean by the beach and even tried to cover the shower room drain with a cup to fill it up with water. If we have a bath tub, I bet he'll want to sit in it all day long.

This photo was taken when Russell was 10 and Jonah was 7. They love dipping in the pool so much they won't get up until their palms are all wrinkled and pale as ghosts!