ISR: Kate Learns to Float and Swim

Kate started Infant Swim Resource (ISR) lessons last week. These are not your typical learn to blow bubbles, get familiar with the water lessons. These survival lessons teach Kate how to swim, float to rest and then continue swimming to an exit. She is learning to grab the wall to pull her head out of the water and swim to the steps to get out of the pool. She attends lessons 5 days a week for 10 minutes and will do so for about four to six weeks, depending on when Kate perfects the swim, float, swim sequence. As much as I want to record or photograph this momentous occasion, I will not pull out such devices until I feel Kate will not be bothered by the distraction.

The Good: In just 6 days of lessons, I can already see results...

• By the end of day one, Kate was grabbing at the wall, kicking her feet and pulling her head out of the water by herself.
• By the end of day 2, Kate was already putting her head in the water and literally swimming to the instructor and across the pool.
• By the end of the first week, Kate was swimming to the steps, kicking her feet, putting her head under water and then grabbing the steps and standing. Right now, this is her favorite part of the lesson. Despite the fact that she cries through the whole lesson, she immediately asks for "more" or to do it "again" once she reaches the steps.
• While Kate (like almost all babies and toddlers going through the program) cries through the duration of the 10-minute lesson, she instantly stops crying and puts her head into the water when her instructor says, "ready, set go..." It's the funniest thing I think I've ever seen.
• Today Kate walked to the pool with her instructor. A big improvement over prying her off my shoulder to hand her to the instructor!
• When tired, Kate immediately turns to a back float position. Today she floated all by herself . Granted, the instructor is right there, but in just a few short lessons, Kate has demonstrated that she is a fast study and one smart cookie. I'm so proud of her!

The Bad: Watching Kate cry for 10 minutes straight is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

When Kate was a little baby last year, I worked tirelessly on the no-cry sleep method and followed the "Baby Whisperer's" advice religiously. As we know, the sleeping beauty is a fantastic sleeper and this dedication paid off. However, because I followed this method, I can only remember a couple of times when Kate cried (and I mean hollered) for longer than a couple of minutes. One time was when she was sick with a fever and the other time sick with constipation. We've let her "cry" to sleep where she whines and fusses and such, but not full out crying like this.

As ill prepared as I was to watch my 17-month old toddler scream for me and cry, I'm amazed at how calmly I can watch her. How I can clap and smile and not show any sense of the anxiety I feel on the inside while she is in the pool. I find comfort and a sense of pride in watching her learn and am amazed at how she pushes through the lesson, despite her fears. I know this is just the first of many times I will have to sit back and watch her struggle and learn on her own. Oh, the journey ahead is long, but I know I've earned stripes and found inner strength that I will dig into in the future.

The Ugly: Watching your baby throw up is heart wrenching

I have to follow some strict protocols with Kate's diet: No dairy within in two hours of the lesson (and I'm finding this is really more like three hours prior to the lesson), no food within an hour (I think more like two hours) and no apples, peaches or spinach during the duration of her training (apparently very gaseous foods that are difficult to digest).

The reason for such strict protocol is to be sure Kate has an empty stomach during her lesson as she swallows a ton of air from all the crying and quite a bit of water. With the lesson at 9:30 a.m., these restrictions in diet are extremely hard to follow. But what I have learned in my six days of lessons is that the mixture of food (especially dairy), excess air and water results in vomiting. Ick. In six days of lessons, Kate has thrown up three times--that's 50% of the time! Each time I feel like I've failed Kate, not to mention disappointed my instructor. Of course, our instructor shows no signs of disappointment, is always encouraging and never reprimands me (probably senses I'm beating myself up enough, already).

The first experience was minor and after the lesson, but the piece of egg I saw that was barely digested convinced me to only feed her toast for the duration of the lesson (okay, so egg was a bad idea...). The second was the worst with a fountain of breakfast shooting from Kate's mouth while she squirmed and wiggled during a floating exercise (no more bananas or cream cheese on that toast!) . The third, today, was definitely better, but also during her lesson and quite disturbing for me to watch (no more milk, not even an ounce!). Kate will be stuck with eating Cheerios or dry toast and water prior to 7:30 a.m. from now on. Hopefully this will eliminate the ugly from happening again. Oh, how I hope so.

For more details about the ISR program, visit them at www.infantswim.com.

Kateisms - August 17

We missed a week...so sorry. Between our visitors, the conference in Boca Raton and Keith's birthday, it's been just plain busy. Here's the latest, cutest-ever Kateisms:

"Sit" - Kate has learned a new word. She loves to tell us (and whoever is over for a visit) to "sit" next to her and play. She'll plop herself down on the floor, point to the ground next to her and say "sit" in the cutest high-pitched little voice.

"Baby, baby, baby"- Taking a photo of Kate these days is nearly impossible. One reason is because she rarely stands in one place long enough to snap a shot, but mostly because as soon as she sees the camera or video camera, she stops the cute thing she was doing that you were trying to capture, walks up to the camera and starts saying "baby, baby, baby" until you show her the picture of the baby...(herself, of course).

She slides! - I had the brilliant idea of bringing the Little Tykes slide inside one hot day when I didn't feel like sweating it out on the patio. Of course, the slide has found a semi-permanent home in the family room among all of Kate's other toys. This last week, daddy taught her how to climb up and slide down all by herself. Her technique is a little shaky, but I can't tell you how excited I am to not have to drop a dish I'm drying to help her down the slide anymore!

Knee-walking - Papa Paul and Grandma Ebbo babysat Kate last weekend so we could celebrate Keith's birthday. After spending a day with them, Kate is suddenly unexplicably walking on her knees...? Keith and I are bewildered at why she keeps doing it...she's not very good at it and it looks like it hurts! But she loves it and it cracks her up when she does it. Hmm. What else will her grandparents teach her????

Kateisms - July 26

This week, it's hard not to notice that we are raising such a girlie girl! Here are the facts...you decide...

1. Baby doll and stuffed animals rule: Kate spends a large amount of time with her stuffed animals and dolls. Her favorite stuffed toys: Minnie (there is no Mickey if you can believe it), a cat, a dalmation puppy and her Teddy Bear along with Baby Katie...a plastic doll that Kate loves to disrobe, lay on a changing pad and pretend to feed, cuddle and hold. At one year's old? Are you kidding?

2. We still love books, but the princesses have entered the house: While Kate's favorite book set is still her Mickey Mouse set from Tia Faith, she has grown quite fond of her new Princess board books from Auntie Jen. In addition, she cannot help but try to put on my shoes, point out my earrings, touch my hair... And, I've noticed how much she enjoys what a fuss her daddy makes over her each morning when he sees her all dressed and exclaimes how very cute she looks today. I know we probably would not socialize a boy in this manner...daddy would never say how pretty he is, I wouldn't insist on a matching bow every day (whether we're leaving the house or not) and I'm darn certain he wouldn't own anything with a princess on it. So, when my princess is driving me crazy over the next whatever brand of jeans she must have or her 20th purse, someone please remind me to read this entry and how we did not help matters in the least.

3. She Climbs: In addition to working on her girlie girlness this week, our sweet Kate has been working on her climbing skills. Now, she learned to climb up on the couch a couple of weeks ago; however, it just hasn't stuck...something about being too busy spinning and playing with dolls... But, with special encouragment and yes, even instruction from her Papa Ron and Namaw Vicki this week has pretty much guaranteed that I should not leave her alone in the family room for any length of time unless I want to come back to find her jumping on the couch...

4. She counts...straight to 5: Kate wants to be "up" pretty much all day long. And, at 25 pounds, I had to think of a way to limit how many times a day I pick her up. So, we taught her to count to five to wait to be picked up. I'm hoping to extend to 10 before long. Right now, she's super funny because she either will try to jump right to "five" or she'll get side-tracked for 1-4 and then perk up enthusiastically when we get to five.

5. Beach, Peach, what's the difference: I took Kate to the beach recently and while explaining where we were, I noticed she was doing the sign for "peach." I kept telling her, the "beach" is to "play" and "peaches" are to "eat." Well, two weeks later and every time we say beach (we're getting ready to head to the beach next week), she is still signing peach... I guess I better learn the sign for beach before we go. Let's hope a sign for beach exists otherwise I'm making one up!

And, in case you were wondering, Kates boo-boo nose is all better. Just a hint of red left. Of course, we're heading back to the bounce place on Friday, so hopefully we don't have a repeat injury.