Our little fish

Aidan has decided that swimming is the best. Two weeks ago, when Christianne took her to swim class, Aidan started putting her face in the water and reaching down to get dive toys off a submerged table. Saturday, when I took her to class, she immediately started putting her face in the water and went off to look for dive toys she could go after. She is actually trying to swim down to them rather than just bend her knees to get them.

Last night at Kathryn and Susie's house, Aidan decided that she needed to jump off the diving board. Yes, you read that right. Jump off the diving board. Now, it was a low, home swimming pool sort of diving board, but still. The first time, she climbed up there all by herself and jumped off without any assistance. She still has trouble knowing to jump out and away from things and was a little close to the board. She didn't hit her head, but we were concerned that she might. But this little girl stood at the end of the board and jumped (or stepped) to Christianne. After that, one of us helped her jump so we could make sure she got out far enough. The other was on catch and retrieval duty. Aidan went quite a way under water and wasn't the least bit scared. She begged to do it over and over and over and over until she was so tired that her legs were jelly and we were breathing hard as well. We finally had to cut her off.

We are thrilled to have a child who embraces adventure and trusts herself and us so much. We are terrified (well, I'm terrified, Christianne is concerned) that this strength could also get her into trouble some day. I will never teach her to be afraid, but a health dose of measured thought might be nice. Until then, we'll watch her like a hawk and hope others will too.