Nora’s been taking swimming lessons since October of last year. This past Friday she completed the requirements for Penguin 1 and has advanced to Penguin 2 (which, presumably, involves learning to catch herring and keep an egg warm through the frigid Antarctic winter). We’re exceedingly proud of our little swimmer. She’s advanced from the world’s premier rock impersonator to someone who could quite probably survive a pool party.
Nora’s last Penguin 1 report card.
We took daily advantage of the wacky hotel pool in Denver. It had a tiny indoor part and then a long, narrow channel connecting it to a much larger, deeper outdoor part on a balcony up on the 7th floor of our hotel. Nora, of course, loved getting to go swimming every day. Here are a couple of pictures of her looking all grown up and tall.
Here we see Nora and Daddy going for a wii run one humid Houston morning. Whee!
Nora started swimming lessons yesterday. She’s in the ‘turtles’ class at this awesome indoor-but-also-sorta-outdoor swimming school not far from our house. She did wonderfully. When I have taken her swimming she’s been like a little koala who wouldn’t stop clinging to me. Here she kicked, paddled, dove to the bottom for rings, jumped off the edge into the pool, and paddled on a giant foam train floaty thing).
Nora went to her friend Avanti’s 4th birthday party — held at a gymnastics school! Everyone got to tumble, use the trampoline, climb a rope, walk the balance beam, swat a piñata, eat cake, and generally have a blast. Most of the photos are filled with other peoples’ kids and we’d neglected to bring a stack of release forms (I’m kidding, there isn’t actually a form (yet)).
Nora really seemed to take to gymnastics in a way that she has not at all taken to soccer or swimming. Look for more gymnastics posts in the future!
In the rest of the world it might be called “football”, but here in the States we inexplicably call this sport “soccer”. Whatever you call it, though, there are few things cuter than a gym full of 3 to 5 year olds playing it.
