The Lily Mermaid

Lily has been taking the ISR swim lessons all summer and progressing like a little fishy! ISR focuses on survival swimming and she has a great instructor who is SO patient, loving, knowledgeable and kind! She still has a few weeks left, but already is doing leaps and bounds from what she was doing when we started. It just blows my mind that what they can teach babies; even as young as 6 months old! Daddy surprised us coming along on this lesson and Lily was ALL smiles performing her tricks for her large audience of 2! She would come up for air and immediately look over at us for cheers and praise. I couldn't believe the look of pride on her face....ours too!!







How is our little 15 month old able to float better than me!?? She just hangs out like this floating like a buoy and holds her breath if there is a wave over her face or spits out the water like a spout resembling a whale's blowhole!




Here she is floating for 20 or so seconds unassisted by her instructor, Fernanda. Of course she's closeby, but Lily is doing it independently for minutes at a time and Fernanda says Lily could float unassisted for hours if needed. We are hyper-vigilant about keeping the pool gate locked at all times and our eyes are always on Lily, but these lessons are extra insurance and peace of mind she'll be safe in the off chance everyone always think will never ever happen! (they teach them to cry out for help like this too)



Here's a great informational video about the program on the news. Call Fernanda at 331-6915 if you're interested and tell her Mermaid Lily sent you!!

I think all these lessons are tiring out our little fishy...here she is at Sam's taking a short rest on the hard metal cart while we wander the aisles. (taken on camera phone)
She'll do this randomly throughout the day; she keeps her eyes open, but just decides to rest her head down somewhere or if we're at home she'll suddenly lay on her stomach in the shape of a star to take a little breather. Here she is at Gpa's house taking a short break in the middle of the room after a wild game of freeze dance with her cousins (and mom who memoralized MJ with the moonwalk)! Lily acted as the DJ and would turn the music on and off and squealed in delight like she knew she was in charge and had all the power in the game.


And Lily had a special visit from her new friend Calhan! Here Calhan is this time last year in Allison's belly in this adorable picture taken by Kelle:


and look what a difference a year makes!!

From middle school on, Allison and I were like sisters and used to sit around and talk about our future babies, our future husbands, our future houses, our future jobs, our future new last names and it's crazy neat to be doing that today for real, comparing our stories from 1986 where nothing is like we had dreamed, but even better!!




Life is Good!!