No Bubble!

This story begins a week ago when LS and Papai took a trip to the pool after a few months away and LS decided to go to a bubble with only 2 of the pads (instead of the 3-pad variety she had last been using months before).  It offered less buoyancy so it was a great move toward moving away from it.

During that swim LS decided to flip over on her back and start kicking away - she was going so fast! (at least given her size :-)  We had the pool to ourselves and at the end of that day she ended up doing 4 full lengths of the pool on her back kicking.  Her first 100 yard backstroke!  On the last 2 lengths, I let her get all the way to the other end before sprinting to catch up with her.  She was very excited about this all.

A few days later, with Memére in town visiting, we decided to go back to the pool and do it again and get to show off for Memére while we were at it.  Before going we talked about her trying to use her arms too this time.  The video below is one of her first attempts at that.

After that adventure, she couldn't wait to get back to the pool.  Today (which is a few days after that last trip) we went again.  This time I had told LS that I thought she could try with just 1 pad to the flotation bubble.  Her face lit up!  Another step toward really swimming.

When we went to the pool we got a single-pad bubble and put it on. Papai was a little nervous with this one, eager to see how much harder she would have to work and how she'd handle it.  We were there at least half an hour, and she handled it great.  Even getting dunked under water several times, but each time able to get onto her back and do some swimming (no arms with just a single bubble though).  She did some dog paddle too.  She was definitely excited.

But the best came at the end.  When I took the bubble off as we were leaving I asked if she wanted to try and float while I held her hands.  She said yes, and as I was putting the bubble down on the deck, she just started to float by herself.  And there she was, floating on her back and kicking her feet, face absolutely glowing that she was doing it without a bubble.

She did some dog paddle, some more floating, pushing off the wall and dunking under, and managing to get enough breathing in while she was at it!  We probably stayed an extra 5 minutes with her just swimming around without any bubble at all.  It's impossible to convey how excited she was by it.  She could not wait to get home and tell Mamãe.  She was jumping up and down and absolutely delirious with her accomplishment.

Now she wants to go back to the pool tomorrow, and this time start without any bubble at all.  Wow! Not a bad week's work.

Bike!

After such a hiatus, where to start? Probably with the most recent. Last week while at a family get-together for Mothers Day, LS inherited a bike from a cousin who has outgrown in. This is the first video of LS riding a bike, with training wheels naturally.



What isn't shown here is that she was given one of those little 8 ounce bottles of water in the basket which shortly after the video here she insisted on taking out and drinking. Of course little legs get pretty thirsty on a 40 yard bike ride.

The bike is pinker than we'd choose, and we haven't exposed her to all the usual Disney princess stories, so to here her bike has pictures of "fairies" on it.

Today she got some more time on the bike and really got the hang of starting to pedal and steering and the like. No video yet of that, or the first two spills that she took. The first on the side of the driveway into the hasta and the second right on the driveway. She did a pretty good job of dusting herself and getting back on, although I think she found it pretty confusing to find herself laying out on the ground with a bike on top of her.

She got her first lesson in bike maintenance today, insisting that she take care of pumping the tires all by herself. She did a pretty good job too. (warning, she lets out a scream in the middle!)