Swim Lessons - Day Two

Today was day 2 of swim lessons for Paiton. They went slightly worse than day 1, but not terrible.
First we picked out today's suit:

Looking at the cute baby in the mirror!

Then we headed out! We got there early so we waited for Teacher Angie on the bleachers.
Then we got tired of waiting and decided we'd get some extra swimming in before the rest of the class got there!
We just hung out on the steps so that Mommy could snap some pictures before it was time for real swimming and I had to put the camera away!
At the beginning of this class we went to the "beach" of the pool, which is just a warm side that has a beach entrance so that the kids could walk in themselves. We told them they needed to stay with Mommy and hold Mommy's hand. Yeah right. My child was the one running full speed into the water with no fear. We just sat in the shallow end and let them explore for a bit. Paiton was very happy to do that and play with the toys but was not so happy that the lesson was that you need to stay with Mommy. She was just convinced she could swim off on her own and didn't need me, and she probably could! ;)
After that it was time to "dive". As soon as the teacher said this I knew this would be the beginning of the end...Paiton's favorite thing the other day was to jump in the water off the wall, or "dive" as she learned to say. I knew that doing this at the beginning of the class was going to ruin the rest of the time for Paiton and I. We "dove" over and over and over. She LOVES it. She will just jump right off the edge and into the water {my arms}. She laughs hysterically and then immediately screams "More!" and tries to get herself to the side.
When it was time to stop it was time to do her least favorite thing, float on her back and kick. She doesn't get the whole "kick" thing and just screams and acts like it's torture! She was screaming "No! Dive!" while the other girls were nicely kicking and blowing bubbles in the water.
Anytime the teacher would come over and say "Can you kick your legs Paiton?" It was met with a loud "No!" and thrashing in the water.
"Can you splash Mommy Paiton?" "No!"
"Can you blow bubbles?" "No! No!"
"Can you kick your legs?" "No! DIVE!"
I'm sure the elderly people in the water aerobics class next to us appreciated the show my child was giving. I should say it wasn't a terrible fit, she just knew what she wanted and it wasn't to float on her back and sing Itsy Bitsy Spider. And can you blame her? The child wanted to DIVE!
I was more amused than annoyed, mostly because my 18 month old can talk so well and the other 2 2 year olds I haven't heard say a word, and because my mom had warned me this would happen. She said that when I was in swim lessons at her age I just wanted to be let go and thought I could just swim away on my own. Which is probably why I swam throughout high school and college, and probably why I find it funny that instead of floating on her back Paiton wants me to let her go! She is Ms. Independent and I love it.
My favorite part was after the lesson. We were both freezing so we went into the locker room and took a nice hot shower and she just hugged me so tight and laid her head on my shoulder. I think she may have fallen asleep for a few minutes. That's my girl, and I love her.