Water baby

I have a suspicion that Sonia must have been a fish in a former life. She loves water so much! Andrew and I both spent a good amount of our childhoods in various pools, lakes, and oceans, so this makes us very happy.

This past week, Sosini started taking swimming lessons; at her age, the lessons are actually considered more of a "water orientation", but she's learning a lot nonetheless. Our "parent-tot" class is a half hour long, and we usually spend the first 10 minutes of the class wading around in the zero-depth entry part of the pool, fishing for rings. Sonia's actually not too interested in this part.... I think it's because she can't walk yet, so it makes her nervous to be wading around in water (even though she is holding my hands)-- walking in water is even harder than walking on dry land! Then we spend 10 minutes or so sitting in the shallow water, splashing and kicking. She thinks this part is okay, but she can't wait until the last 10 minutes of class: swimming time! Sosinini thinks it's positively hilarious when I help her "float" and "swim" on her tummy. She gets a great little grin on her face-- hopefully when Andrew comes with us to swim lessons on Monday, one of us can capture her swim-related glee on camera.

Yesterday, after a great picnic at Gartner Park with some wonderful friends, we got together with a few neighborhood families to have a 3rd of July barbecue. Sonia went nutty over the kiddie pool that one of our neighbors brought over to the festivities. She thought it was so fun to climb in and out of the pool, and she kept making me help her crawl up the inflatable slide. Two of the neighbor kids (one is 3 years old and one is almost 2 years old) provided a lot of entertainment for Sosi as well-- she loved to watch them running and splashing.

Looking all suave in her hand-me-down sun hat from Charbunkle


Proudly brandishing an inflatable fish toy while squinting into the setting sun... I love that swimsuit!!


Sonia, don't nom on the fishy!


Anya provided moral support and cheered as Sonia tested out the slide. After Sonia crawled away from the pool to go play with Danny's cars, Anya kept coming over to Sonia, pointing at her, and asking, "water?". She wanted Sonia to come back in the pool with her!


We love our baby beluga!