Little Swimmers

The girls are signed up for Swim Camp at the Y over the school vacation week, so they have been swimming like little fish for the past few days.  (I mean, really, swimming in an indoor pool in winter is only SLIGHTLY different from taking a winter vacation trip to the Bahamas, right??)  Julia has started work on some new skills, including flip turns, and Madeleine has been swimming in the deep end by herself, without a bubble!  She even jumped off the diving block on her own and swam to her teacher, although she had the jitters on her first jump.

SWIM INSTRUCTOR: Do you want to climb up on the block yourself or do you want Mom to help you?
MADELEINE: I want Mom to help me.
ME: Okay, here we go! (taking her hand to steady her as she climbed up on the block.)
MADELEINE: (stepping tentatively forward on the block) Uh, I think I'm a little too scared to do it... (without another thought, plunging herself off the block and front-crawling to her teacher.)

That's guts, man.

I got a few brief videos of Madeleine swimming her front crawl in the deep end:




 


Perhaps the Olympics are inspiring the girls to reach these new athletic milestones.  As they watched their favorite winter Olympian, Gracie Gold, skating in last night's short program, Julia sighed deeply and stated, "I wish that *I* could be in the Olympics some day."

Since swimming is her current sport, I figured her goal would be becoming an Olympic swimmer.  Turns out she's reaching even FARTHER than that.

ME: What sport would you do?  Swimming?
JULIA: Well, I really want to be in the Olympics as an ICE SKATER.

Seeing as neither kid has even ONCE been on skates, and seeing as they both seem to have their mother's terrible sense of balance, we'd really better get a move on if we're going to achieve THAT dream. 

And for the time being, they can just do what they're already doing to live their Olympic dream: donning glittery dress-up clothes to flail and thump around the living room, pretending to be skaters. 

It's kind of the same as me imagining the indoor YMCA pool is a tropical cove in the Bahamas, right??