water babies

Upon initially accepting this new job I was a little concerned that I would be incredibly bored. Eight month olds are generally not that entertaining and the days are very routine. With that said, Linus and I have been very busy and have yet to run out of exciting things to do. After the family got me a membership to the New York Sports Club, we signed up for water babies class. The first class was this week. I had taken him to the pool a few times before to see how he liked the water and get him used to "swimming." I am not sure what you are supposed to do with an infant in the pool, but we practiced kicking and I showed him how to blow bubbles, which always makes him giggle. He loves watching people swim laps and I get a pretty good workout running in the water while holding onto him as he splashed about.

When we were signing in at the front desk the guy said, "Oh, are you here to work out?" No, I was going to go sit in the locker room. Why else would you come to the gym? I told him yes, and he told me that the nursery did not open until 5pm. I told him that I was taking Linus swimming with me and he looked at me like I was a moron. I guess all the Greenwich housewives go to the gym to get away from their kids. Overall I like the gym and the pool, but there is a huge glass wall that looks into the main workout room. So, basically, if the macho muscle building guys get tired of watching CNN, they can watch me walk around in a swim suit. Great.

I was excited to see what the instructor of water babies would have us do, and figured I could get some good ideas for when we go on our own. Big disappointment. The young woman who was teaching the class hasn't the slightest clue as to what to do. I was tempted to ask her if she knew how to swim. She held out a toy dolphin and was trying to get him to reach out to it, practicing for when he learns to swim. He was not interested in the toy and ignored her for the entire half hour. After the class was over I ran with him up and down the pool and he got the hang of kicking and splashing. After class we showered off in the locker room, which is a little dangerous. The kid is incredibly slippery and I am paranoid he will go flying across the floor. He loves crawling around the locker room while I get dressed and all the women coon over how cute he is. I am not sure if we will continue to show up for the actual class, but I will have that kid swimming laps before he turns 3!