Water, water, everywhere

I took Coby swimming for the first time today and we had a truly magical time.

I felt a little emotional too. Since Coby was three months old, there have been a number of plans to take him swimming. We kept delaying for various reasons and a couple of dates arranged with Maddy and Louis had to be cancelled, this morning being one of them. I decided to just DO IT anyway.

By my own admission, I'm the queen of putting things off until tomorrow, but this morning I thought, no way! Tomorrow, schmorrow!

Not only did we go swimming but, spurred on by my now or never attitude, we were in the leisure centre car park by 9.a.m. I bounded up to the receptionist with a wide-eyed Coby strapped into his pushchair and said:

"Right, this is the first time I have bought my son swimming and I have lots of questions"

She looked a little scared but was extremely helpful, answering all of my questions and even phoned the centre manager to check I could take my camera to the poolside.

Now, the main reason I was quite emotional, aside from the fact that it was my son's first time in a swimming pool, was because I am petrified of water and cannot swim. I know that a little paddle in the baby pool is hardly facing up to my fears, but the whole idea of stepping foot in a public swimming pool fills me with dread. I cannot recall a particular incident from my past that has caused me to feel this way, but the smell, the sound, everything just makes me nervous. For Coby's sake today, I faced up to my fears and I think I may even go one step further and take lessons and learn to swim. I don't want to pass on my irrational fears to my son. Which means the next thing to conquer is....moths!!!!

Anyway, the experience was a little bewildering for Coby and I think he just saw it as having an extra special bathtime. We did forward stroke, back stroke, diving and jumping and some synchronised swimming too!

I also discovered that the chlorine strips the nail varnish off your toenails. Interesting.