Swim party

Alice was invited to one of her classmates' birthday party at a local pool on Saturday.  Initially we had all planned to go but Simon came down with a fever, so Sera stayed home with him and just Alice and I attended.   The party took place in the area around the kiddie pool but Alice and I also took a dip in the regular pool.

For the majority of the time there the kids just played in the water while the parents talked with each other.  Occasionally some interference was necessary (for splashing adults or grabbing toys away from each other) but for the most part the we were able to just hang back.  This is super nice as keeping Alice in line is often a full time effort (although this is less true as she gets older). 

The hosts provided a ton of pool toys for the kids to play with; this was great as Alice is a bit of a hoarder.  She spent much of her time collecting toys and figuring out how to stow them on her body.

There were small picnic tables for the kids to sit at while they ate cake and snacks.  It was pretty cute to see them all sitting together.  There are similar tables in Alice's class so they all knew the drill and didn't try and get up while eating.

There was quite a bit of time between when we arrived and when we cut the cake and I tried to get Alice to come with me into the big pool.  She refused and only asked to go in as the party was winding down.  This wasn't a problem except that the pool was then in shade and Alice was already shivering and getting blue lips. I decided to take her for a short swim anyway. We went into the shallow end of the pool and played around a bit.  This was her first foray into a real pool this year and was in a way experiencing swimming for the first time all over again.  She clung to me at first but did quickly walk around a bit on her own.  Had it been warmer and not towards the end of her energy I would have done more of the swimming lesson stuff (head under water, paddling, etc) but as it was we only tried kicking while I supported her belly.  Even though she was clearly uncomfortable it took a bit of convincing to leave the pool without a meltdown.