Yippee It's Saturday again! Off to Marsden we go!I thought that the things we'd do today were going to be a repeat of last week's. I was pleasantly wrong. Not only were there new things to try, they upped the level of "difficulty"!
During the Water Confidence round, when the instructor passed Ignatius to Daddy, she actually dipped Ignatius' face into the water. Our little boy seemed surprised, but didn't complain. A lot of face scrunching though!
Also, during the "If You're Happy" song segment, she put in 2 extra stanzas that went "If you're happy and you know it dip your eyes!" and the parents dunked the children's heads/face into the water. Daddy followed suit and again, lotsa blinking from Ignatius, but no crying! The other stanza was "If you're happy and you know it wet your face!". Again some parents dipped their child's head into the water, but Ignatius merely got his face washed. Haha.
And to our surprise, when Ignatius was placed on the foam mat, he spontaneously bent down to kiss the mat, and once, just once, there were bubbles!! I'm amazed that he appears to remember the lesson last week.
And to our delight, during the Humpty Dumpty song, when it came to "Humpty Dumpty had a great...FALL!", Ignatius "jumped" into the water!!! We know he prefers to be in the water, as opposed to sitting up there, but it sure was exciting to see him manouevre/inch his butt off the edge of the pool, and plop down into the water.
And to add to the whole excitment level, the instructor pulled over the slide! She supported Ignatius as he slid down the slide, and let go as he reached the end. Ignatius free-slides and Daddy catches Ignatius as he enters the water, before he got totally submerged. But the more experienced toddlers (those into their 2nd term) actually got totally submerged before their parents lifted them out.
During this class, the emphasis was on water safety: Learning how to turn around when you get into the water to hold the edge of the pool, and learning how to move along the edge (they call it "Monkeying").
For the turning around segment, Daddy showed Ignatius how to turn around to face him. Our little rascal wouldn't have any of that! He immediately turned around (Lord knows how he did it!...kinda spun his body in the pool) again so he could face the instructor, and splash water. And for the "monkeying" segment, it was hopeless. The little rascal wanted to remain in the pool, and didn't want to be half lifted out, and move along the edge. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.
I think the whole experience was helped by the fact that most parents were so blaise about the class. There was no molly-coddle-ing, or coo-ing to their toddlers when they protested to drinking/breathing in some chlorinated water. So to a newbie like Ignatius, this is presented as the natural state of things, and he never whined. Of course the class was fun fun fun till Daddy takes the T-bird away!
As usual, he bawled when class was over. *wry grin*
Now, we, I'm sure Ignatius included, can't wait for the next class! I wonder what's in store for us!
