My two little fishies . . .

. . . Morgan and Griffin

Morgan has always been cautious (and even that word might be an understatement), but her biggest fears seem to be with depth perception and heights. This is most apparent at parks and playgrounds. Most people probably haven't paid much attention to how playgrounds are designed, but most play sets have really small holes on the stairs and walkways that make it possible to see the ground down below. Morgan is getting better with this but has struggled with being able to walk and not crawl around on these playgrounds out of her fear.

She carried this fear of depth into swimming. She was fine in a kiddie-pool where she felt in control but terrified in a regular 3-4 ft. shallow end of a pool. We started her in swimming lessons at the beginning of summer and she hated it! Every morning when she woke up she would ask if she had swimming with Uncle Blake. And was never happy to find out she did. I wish I would have gotten some videos of her from the beginning of summer . . . she would wrap her arms and legs around my brother (her teacher) and practically strangle him. It was pretty much impossible to get her arms and legs unwrapped to be able to start working on swimming (isn't she supposed to have low muscle tone? Ha!)

It may have taken a summer full of swim lessons, BUT . . . I now have a swimming girl that LOVES to swim, has her face in the water more than out, and now begs to go swimming with Uncle Blake! The first videos shows Morgan swimming from the rope to the steps.

The other two videos are of Griffin. I guess we forgot to tell him he just turned 3 and isn't supposed to be able to swim all over the pool all by himself.

We are going to miss swimming in grandma's pool every day now that summer is coming to a close and I KNOW my kids are going to miss having Uncle Blake as their teacher. He really is the best-- so patient, loving, and positive with them. We love you Blake!