Little Fish

ICE CREAM EVERYWHERE!!!

Starfish


Swimming and Dunking

I'm not sure why, but Annalise has always had a healthy fear of the water. She's never been a fan of having it in her face and it's generally a bit of a fight to wash her hair in the tub because she needs to be absolutely certain that there is ZERO CHANCE that a single drop of water will even venture near her nose, ears, or eyes. Yes, I know, I should have been running water over her face as a baby in the bathtub, but I didn't, so she's had to overcome the challenge herself.

We've been working hard on getting her to be happy in the water this summer and we started out with a life jacket, paired with a Nemo inner tube, and a death grip on me whenever she went in the water. Eventally, she got brave and she became comfortable in the water on her own with just her life jacket. Through playing in the water with a ton of friends, she's gotten even braver and I've been trying to talk her into putting her face in the water. No luck so far...

I'm not sure what happened today, but I think she just decided she was ready to give it a try! I asked her if she wanted to play "starfish" (which I had seen another mom doing) and as a starfish she was 100% on board with floating on her back with her ears in the water. She says it's peaceful under the water without all of the people screaming all over the place. (Huh - maybe I should try living under the water?). After Starfish was over, she said she was ready to dunk under the water with me. I've been bugging her to try for months so I was a little surprised when she asked me! She held on to my hand and went completely under. I came up pretty quickly to check on her and there she was...hanging out below the surface! We started the day with her holding her nose but, as you can see, she's ready to try blowing "nose bubbles" and now she's rockin' it!