Confession...

It's no secret that Peter LOVES the water.  I mean, he lovvvves being in the water.  (Several friends will most definitely recall the week we spent together at Tybee Island two summers ago.  And how Peter, only 15 months old at the time, wanted to swim in the ocean so badly, he literally almost drown himself every single day.  He would run into the ocean as fast as he could and flop into the water.  He'd get up, completely soaked, with seemingly gallons of salt water in his belly, and want to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.  It was absolutely exhausting.)

But here's my secret.  I've kinda, sorta, maybe told him that the pool at my gym was closed.  Or being cleaned.  Or being fixed.  Because even though we've made a habit of watching the old folks doing water aerobics on our way out, I didn't really want to get into the habit of going swimming every single time we go to the gym together.  Because I feel like my gym time is just that… my time.

Until yesterday... when Peter started giving himself swim lessons.  In our bathtub.   I realized I had no choice but to take him to the pool.

After I was done running this morning, I picked Pete up from the day care and told him I had a surprise for him.  I wish you could have seen his face when I told him I brought his swimsuit and that we were going swimming together.  His smile lit up the room.  And the time we had together?  It was perfect.

Over and over again he'd jump in the pool and say, "DON'T CATCH ME!"-- and he meant it.  He wanted to jump into the pool and "swim" to the side all by himself.  And, oh my gosh, his smiles.  He had the biggest smiles every time he'd come back up to the surface of the water.  One of the older gentleman who was there swimming kept stopping to watch Pete and finally said to me, "My goodness…that's phenomenal.  Does that boy have gills?"  

I couldn't have said it any better.

We're going back on Thursday.