A Future Michael Phelps?

Well .. Michael Phelps without the marijuana photo we hope.

Over the last several days Carter has finally found his braveness and is attempting to learn to swim. For a long time he has been using a tube to kick around the water with. We finally convinced he and Nathan to try water wings (with a lot of ice cream treat encouragement) and they took to them like a fish to water (ouch!). Nathan has done fantastically but is content to float around and kick a little. Carter has taken it to a whole new level (again with the requisite ice cream treat encouragement).

We reminded him that his bestest buddy Magnus can already swim and his competitive nature just took over. Stage 2 was jumping into the pool with water wings which required him to learn how to hold his breath under water albeit for a brief period. In stage 3 Alice convinced him to wear the goggles to keep water out of his eyes and he concurred despite his earlier objections. This led quickly to stage 4 - putting his face in the water voluntarily for extended periods. I coaxed him to play a game where we wave at each other underwater but he quickly realized that the water wings wouldn't let him go to far under so I seized the opportunity to move immediately to stage 5 - goggles, face underwater and NO WATER WINGS! He was great at it right away and just began swimming by himself.