Sink or Swim

With summer officially in full swing (in California we have to seasons: Summer and Summer Lite), it's time once again to get in the pool for swim lessons.  Since we moved, it's no longer feasible for the girls to go to Ms. Joanie any more - and her brilliance as a swim instructor is going to be missed.  However, we found a replacement starting lessons in our community so the girls were signed up and ready to go.  One of the downfalls of children with a stay at home parent is they tend to have apprehension when it comes to new situations, mainly those in which that stay at home parent is not allowed to get involved.  We know this all too well, so we started prepping the girls weeks ago in anticipation of this moment.  And by prepping I mean bribing.  The girls will get new princess costumes to add to their boudoir if they go all the way through lessons with out giving anyone a hard time.  And for this first lesson, if they made it with out crying, they would get a new toy.  We even went so far as to buy the toy already and hold it hostage until they proved themselves worthy.  I came home early so I could take part and all through the drive there, the walk up, the disrobing the girls were adamant they would not cry and they would do "great".  Standing on the first step of the pool and both were in hysterics.  Damn it!  Gina and I self banished ourselves to the club house.  We slowly made our way back about 15 minutes later and the new Ms. Julie must have worked some sort of magic because both were laughing and going about the lesson with out a hitch.  Genevieve even gave her instructor pointers as she waited on the steps for her turn (love that my kid learning to swim is telling the teacher how to teach the subject she doesn't know. ... high school should be fun).  Anyway, I think this should prove to be a good fit, even if we traded Ms Joanie for Ms Julie.