Elizabeth has always loved swimming and she has always been really confident in the water, wanting to get away from us as much as possible. She still doesn’t swim without arm bands but we were waiting for her to turn four before we put her into lessons. Obviously this was put on hold when she became ill and she has been really disappointed to find out that she is not allowed to go swimming yet.
Alison has always been a bit weary in the water, wanting to be attached to me or Hubby like a limpet. She has never been happy in the swimming pool and always wanted to get out after about 10 minutes but I think the one on one time she had at Butlins gave her the confidence that she was missing. It was so lovely to see her paddling along with her arm bands on.
She had only really started to get confident in the water on this trip to Butlins but unfortunately we haven’t been swimming since. I feel really guilty that something that she enjoys has been taken away from her so I have decided that enough is enough and I am going to take her swimming on Sunday.
There is a great local swimming pool that has a family session on a Sunday morning so I can take her to that. They have loads of toys in the pool and it is just for under 5’s so although busy it does not involve lots of splashing. I love it there as they have nursery rhymes playing in the background and near the end they have Wally the Walrus come out and do some dancing and singing with the kids. I feel sorry for the poor member of staff who has to wear the Wally costume though as it must be roasting in there with the humidity of the pool.
I am a little concerned about her having an accident in the swimming pool though, especially since she has regressed due to Elizabeth’s illness. I was talking to the lady on the Water Babies stall about this yesterday and she reminded me about the Splash About swim nappies we had used when they were little. I hadn’t even thought of those as I assumed that they were for much younger kids but I am actually really impressed that they do them in her size. Unfortunately none of them are really green, they do have a lime coloured one though so I will show it to her and see what she thinks.
If I don’t have to worry about her having an accident all I have to do is pluck up the courage to put my swimming costume back. Oh well no one knows me at the pool and hopefully my diet will make sure that by the time I am back at Butlins in April I will be happy to show off my new size 10 body.
Well a girl can dream.