Swimming!!!

Wednesday night after arriving back home from the Li River cruise and the silk factory, we had some free time and decided to see how Lina might enjoy swimming.

Daddy got in first, trying to coax Lina into the water. That was a no-go. She won't come within 5 feet of him on dry land, let alone into the water. Daddy and Lina played catch with a beach ball for a while, with Daddy in the water and Lina on the poolside deck. She enjoyed throwing it as far from Daddy as possible and watching him chase it. She's got a pretty good arm, too! At least this was good fun interaction with Daddy that earned him a few smiles, if not hugs.

When it became obvious that she wasn't coming in with Daddy, Mommy came in and Lina followed her right down the steps into the pool with no problem. In fact, the only problem was that hotel's pool was about 4 feet deep everywhere (no deep or shallow end) so the whole thing was over her head, and she had no concept that this might be a bad thing. She would just walk right down the steps and step off the last one into water that was over her head. Mommy would grab her up out of the water and put her back on the steps, and she'd do it again. On the first few tries she didn't realize she needed to keep her mouth closed, and came up coughing and sputtering, but eventually she realized how to solve that problem. She never did seem to develop any fear of the water, though, and would walk right into the parts where she couldn't touch. We'll have to keep an eye out for that in any future pool visits...