A very brave girl

I am often surprised at how brave Jaida can be. I suppose this is because she is such a cautious child by nature. Joe and I have always known that Jaida is a child that has to think before leaping. She is not a kid that will just rush out and do something at the spur of the moment. There is always a bit of hanging back and watching and assessing the situation. I would not categorize her as shy at all ... she just needs a bit of time to warm to a new situation. This is not a big shock to us as Joe and I are both similar. We have seen this behavior many times with her.

Most recently though it has been in swimming. We have been going to a local pool several times a week all summer. Also, Jaida gets to swim practically every day while at daycare. It seems for the longest time there has been a stumbling block for Jaida and that was getting her face wet. She didn't like to be splashed in the face and going under the water was simply out of the question. Also, she was a bit nervous to be in the pool at all without her float vest. About three weeks ago we started her in group swim lessons and for some reason she had a really hard time doing any of the things the instructor asked even though she would do all of them for Joe or me. Then Nancy (her daycare instructor) did something that pushed Jaida over the edge and turned her into a total wild woman in the pool. Nancy has a large inflatable slide that she set up at the deep end of her pool. Jaida was scared to death to go down the slide (with floats of course) but Nancy worked with her and got her to slowly start going down the slide. First she held Nancy's hand, then she just bounced off the end of it into the water, etc. Then one day Nancy announced this was the day Jaida was going to go down the slide all by herself. I suppose because she didn't give Jaida the choice of not doing it it made it easier for Jaida. Within a day Jaida was going down the slide headfirst, feet first backwards, forwards , sideways, etc and having a blast.

Since that day everything has changed. Jaida no longer has any fear of going under water. She was bumped up to the next level in swim class because she is doing so great. She now eagerly goes all the way under the water, takes a breath and kicks off from the side of the pool and will swim a short distance to her instructor or us. She jumps off the side of the pool to us. Floats face down and on her back. She is learning to tread water and swim under the water now. She is doing so great. She loves going to swim class and it has the added benefit of wearing her out completely which leads to a very early bedtime. ;)