Well, the days of mom and tot activities have come to an end. Although she won’t be three for another month, today in parent/child swim classes we finally got the boot. Last session there were only three kids, so they all just kinda did their own thing. Today was the first day of a new session, and there were like 10 kids. Actually, they were babies and toddlers. It was painfully obvious that M was not going to fit in. She has no patience for singing baby songs and blowing bubbles anymore. She jumps off the edge halfway across the pool, and goes under to touch the bottom before coming up. She floats on her back. The new teacher was like, um, sorry but she’s going to have to move up to the next class, she’s more than ready.
I was like, wha? My baby? Ready to be in a class where she goes into the pool without me? On the other hand, we watched the tail end of the preschool class before ours started and I was like, gee, she can do all that stuff now. So I guess she’s ready swimming skills-wise. I’m just not sure she’s ready to wait her turn, listen to the teacher, or be anything other than a menace. But I guess it’s time for her to start.
We’re doing a couple private lessons to acclimate her to being in the water without me (and listening to someone else). To be honest, she sometimes listens a lot better to “teachers” than to me, so maybe it’s a good thing. She also doesn’t want me “holding” her in the water anymore. She’s like, “let me go!” all the time even when it’s deep. Today we put the life jacket “wings” on her for the first time, and she was swimming all over the pool by herself, happy as could be.
Somehow in the last six months she became a child, not a toddler. It kills me, and fills me with pride at the same time. I’m not ready for this, but I doubt I’d ever be!
Mother of All Things 
I put Carter and Dylan in the same swim class this session because I thought it would be easiest for us. Technically she should’ve been in level 1 and he hadn’t really passed the final level of Guardian but was recommended for the pre-school level. I decided to just put them both in level 2 with moms and figured it would be fine. It is not. She is fine but clearly not going to pass. He is so past it. He speedly does what the instructor wants to assess and then gets a noodle and swims off on his own. I don’t understand why he doesn’t need me anymore! it’s not fair!