Ava & Harper's 1st swimming lesson

Ava was nervous this morning and didn't want to put on her swimsuit, so we weren't surprised when we opened the door to Briarcliff pool and she started to cry.   Harper cried with her, but stopped after a couple of minutes in the pool.   The instructors really know how to handle this situation because they were calm and  took Ava from me and handed her an instructor in the pool.  She took her to the far end of the pool and walked around with her, Ava cried for 40 minutes.  The instructor told us afterwards that she made a deal with Ava, if she was quiet for 10 minutes she could get out of the pool 10 minutes early.  Ava stopped crying and the instructor slowly worked her way back over to where Harper was swimming and let her watch her sister.  Harper swam over to them and they talked a little. 
                                                              

 Harper did great, she was starting to learn to beaver dive at the end.

Finally, Ava got out early, she was still sobbing a little, but when I asked her if she had fun, she said "yes".  And later when they were talking about their lesson, Ava was very animated and talked about how well Harper did.   We went over to Rielee's pool in the afternoon, Ava had fun and swam with the floaties while holding on to one of Papa's fingers, she even swam a couple of feet by herself to the ladder, too.  Progress!