Swim lessons & the shiny pirate hook

Time has gotten away from us yet again. Let's recap the past week & a half...

Last Saturday was the 4th of July, which in this town means the Peachtree Road Race. Mommy & Daddy ran the race, while Emma slept in (sort of) and played with Aunt Laura.

We went out into the street at night and watched the nearby fireworks. Emma didn't seem to be scared, once she was outside where she could see them. She liked calling out the colors as they filled the sky.

Had an excursion to the pool one day, but Emma refused to smile for the camera.

Her latest favorite toy is one she made up, using part of an old Happy Meal prize. It's supposed to be the top of a little doggy carrier, but she puts it over her hand and calls it her "shiny pirate hook" (we can thank her favorite episode of Dora & Diego for that!). She'll also tell you that a pirate says, "ARRRRR!!!"

Cousin Nathan was here for a visit with Megan last week. He decided that behind her reserved facade, Emma is really a biker chick at heart. So he brought her a Sturgis t-shirt from his home state of South Dakota. Emma LOVES her new shirt! She doesn't understand what Sturgis is, but she loves the butterfly and all the pretty colors!

Last week also brought Emma's first swim class at the neighborhood pool with Ms Daniela. I haven't gotten the pictures of Week 1 from Jackson's mommy yet, but it was basically 30 straight minutes of four 2 1/2 year olds screaming, with a few excuses thrown in for good measure. ("I have to go potty!" "My tummy hurts!" "I need to go see my mommy!") Emma mostly just screamed the whole time, but she did do what Ms Daniela asked her to do while she was crying.

Their 2nd lesson was yesterday, and it went much better. They only cried about half the time, and we could actually see some progress. Emma's still not a big fan of putting her face in the water, but she did do some of the things she learned last week all by herself.

Swimming with the kickboard:

Swimming with Ms Daniela, while her buddy Jackson clings for dear life to his mommy:

Working as hard as she can to keep that head out of the water while Ms. Daniela urges her to get her face wet:

We've got another lesson tomorrow, where I bet we'll see even more improvement. Before we know it, she'll be a regular fish out there!