Unexpected Swim Star?

The kids have been doing swim lessons every day for the past two weeks. The first day Charley through a holy fit and didn't want to do it. The second day he agreed to sit on the side and mope with his class. In fact he didn't get wet the whole first week.

I tried every strategy I could think of....discipline, bribery, logic, mild amount of guilt. He wasn't scared of the water really, just the lifeguards and doing the class. As soon as the class was over, the little stinker wanted to get in and play!

At the beginning of this week, I finally found the ticket with the help of a friend who lent me a blue ribbon that says 'swim star'. The kid just wanted to wear a badge of honor. Once he knew that he could get that sucker for completing the class, he was in the water no problem. And ever since he's been enjoying himself. 

Tessa has been a fish the whole time, of course. 

And look at this kid, who was screaming and crying last week, hanging out in the deep end with a lifeguard. I'm glad we stuck with it even though it was tempting just to let him quit. Quitters never swim!...and swimmers never quit? Yeah, something like that. 

The pool opens after our class is over, so a couple of times we have hung out just to play.

I need a new swimsuit. This one is so big on top that I am very close to having an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction. 54lbs gone! 

I tried taking some pictures of us  using the super vivid setting on my camera, but we all looked like sunburnt Umpa-Loompas. It did make a cool affect with Tessa and the colorful slide, though.