Noodling

So, I told you I'd elaborate on a story from my liszt. My nieces always create the best stories...

I was determined to get Kaiter to learn how to swim with a water noodle in the big kid pool on Saturday. She was terrified and migrated from the 1 1/2-feet-deep kiddie pool to the 3-feet-deep part of the big pool, back and forth. When I offered to show her how to float with just a noodle, she immediately turned me down.

"Oh, no..." So many words had to be skimming across the surface of her brain, surely including "drowning," "bad aunt" and "That noodle will never hold me up on its own."

Well, I am quite persistent. Finally, I was dragging her out into the deepish waters. She held onto me the whole time and said with force that I was not to let her go. She tried to distract me by ordering me to get her different colors of noodles. Blue, green, purple, pink.

Once we cycled through all of the colors, I finally tried to explain that I was floating too, so I wasn't even holding her up. Then, to demonstrate, I finagled my fingers out of her tight grasp.

She panicked and squirmed as the noodle dipped into the water. But then... she was still floating.

I grabbed her hands again so she would stop panicking.

"You almost made me sink'ded!" she screeched at me.

I know, I'm such a meanie. But now she can float all by herself. She's more fearless now and will paddle her way across the whole pool without any help from anyone.

By the way, I'm really excited to be a teacher. : ]