Diving Board

Today was a really awesome day for Cristina. She has had issues with water since she was born. The first time we gave her a bath in a bathtub she screamed the entire time. When she was 4 or 5 months old we took her to her first swimming pool. When I put her feet in the water, she kept lifting her feet up as high as she could to get out of the water. She ended up lounging on the pool chairs instead of playing in the water. As she got older we continued to have problems with bath time. She could not stand having water on her face. Washing her hair was a huge struggle. As she got older she become more comfortable in the water as long as her face stayed dry. When her little sister came along she was completely different. She was 2 the first time we took her to a pool. It was at my mom's cousin's house. We walked into the backyard and Victoria just ran and jumped in. She scared us to death. We grabbed her, and all she wanted to do was jump in again. I spent most of the time there getting splashed in the face as she jumped in. We decided to immediately put her in swim lessons. She goes to a place with an indoor pool. This means she takes lessons once a week year round. Now having a little sister show you up in such a big way  is bigger motivator than anything we had every tried before. Cristina made it her goal to learn to go underwater. We got her some goggles, and she began working on it. Several weeks ago my mom took the girls to a friend's house who has a pool. Her daughter was there, and she is a former life guard. Whatever she did with Cristina that day made Cristina decide that she loves going underwater and swimming. We signed her up for a two week swim lesson session at a local pool. Today was her third day. And the whole point of this story is that she jumped off the diving board into 17 feet of water. Her swim teacher was there to catch her. There was a point that I thought I would never see that. I was so proud and so happy when I saw her jumping off that board.

Ready . . .

Set . . .

Splash!!!

She did it!!!