"I love swimming"

Alice and swimming lessons have a love/hate relationship.  Despite a promising start when she was 7 or 8 months, the romance petered out when she had continual ear infections last winter and we weren't able to go for 6 months or more.  Post-grommets, we re-enrolled with gusto, but it's been a long, hard slog to get her back in the water - she used to ask to get out after 5 minutes if we took her at weekends and lessons were a real battle of wills/ half hour of whispered bribery/ feat of endurance for me.  We have been held back in the baby class, ie I still have to get in the water with her, and the kids are much younger than her, which you could think might not be the best fun for her either.

Each time I get to the end of my tether with lessons and think that we might give up and spend our one day together doing things that at least one of us enjoys, she has a spurt in ability/confidence.  Halfway through the summer term, I was almost in tears at the thought of having to go again since she was in tears all the way through the class, but she suddenly picked up and was willing to run along the float and jump off/ would consider kicking her legs from time to time/ did not cry each time the teacher so much as looked at her.

We had recently reached another period of stagflation, even in danger of slipping into recession/regression when things got better again yesterday.  Firstly we've been taking her to a different pool at weekends that has a wave machine.  You'd think she'd hate it, but actually quite the opposite.  Secondly, she's developed a real and not to mention extremely convenient interest in babies recently.  So although yesterday's class started badly, with a supply teacher replacing the regular lady and Alice threatening meltdown (she has now really bonded with "Lisa the lady, not Issa the iguana", as she likes to call her - it's a Dora gag she thought up all by herself) but ended in a time of joy and hilarity as Alice kicked her legs "like the baby does" (ie my baby who had kicked her that very morning) and giggled at the babies as they took their turns in crawling/jumping off the runway "Look at 'is little face", she chuckled in her best Babs Windsor as her favourite took his turns. 

Whilst waiting for her turn to high five the teacher goodbye, she turned to me and announced, "I love swimming".  Perhaps we are getting there at long last.