Swimming with Fearful and Fearless

A friend of mine and I decided to take our kids "somewhere fun" since it was their last day of school. It was actually her idea, and her family really, really wanted to go swimming. She has 4 children, ages 7, 5, 3 and 4 months. So, you could say she had her hands full (but she handled everything quite nicely!), but I felt like I was going to have my hands full with Thomas (the Fearful) and Toby (the Fearless), nevertheless, I thought I had to give it a try...it's going to be an awfully long summer if we don't get out and do some fun things every once in a while.

You see, Thomas, not surprisingly, has been quite fearful of the water. He had gotten a lot "better" last summer, but it has been almost a year since he has had the chance to swim. Playing in the mudponds at Playmobil FunPark does not count! So I did not know what to expect from him and how demanding he was going to be of me.

Then, there is Toby, last year, he didn't really like the water, but I thought it was mainly because he thought the water was too cold. I had no idea of what to expect; except the worst!

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Thomas really did pick up right where he left off...as long as he is wearing the water wings he is not afraid and had a great time! I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that Toby really doesn't care for the water. Not that he was afraid of it and trying to climb up my legs when he got near it, but he was perfectly content to walk around "the beach" of the wave pool and get wet up to his ankles! I am quite OK with the fact that he isn't wanting to dive in or go off the diving board at the age of two!

One humorous aspect of my first time swimming at a German swimming pool: the dressing room is Unisex. Yes, you read that correctly. Although, the dressing room itself has lots of private dressing stalls (which we used), my friend told me she has seen more naked men in the dressing rooms of swimming establisments while living here in Germany, then she ever wanted to in her whole life! I didn't see any naked men and that didn't hurt my feelings.

Until later,

Emily