Lily goes swimming for the first time

Sometimes in the mornings while I'm waiting to catch the train to work, I see a mum from the Baby Rhyme Time class that I used to take Lily to when I was on maternity leave. We say hello, exchange a few pleasantries but that's about it really. Her name is Elizabeth and a few weeks ago she was telling me that she'd taken her son Robbie (who is about a week younger than Lily) swimming, and then she asked if me and Lily wanted to go with them one weekend. So of course, I jumped at the opportunity for two reasons. Firstly I've always wanted to take Lily swimming but never wanted to go on my own, and secondly since my local first time mums group ditched me and I fell out with pyscho Nina, Lily unfortunately hasn't had any little friends her own age to play with.

I was really excited at the prospect of taking Lily swimming, but first I had to buy Lily a swimming costume and I had to find my swimming costume. I bought Lily a gorgeous little pink and white polka dot swim suit from M&S for a bargainous £7.00. It has a built in 'swim nappy' in it but it didn't very nappylike to me. So in a bit of a panic, I emailed my bestest friend in the whole wide world from primary school and experienced mother of two.

"I just bought Lily a new swimsuit with a built in nappy thing (going to take her swimming for the first time on Saturday).... do I still need to put a special swimming nappy on her too????? What if she does a poo in the swimsuit????"

"I always put a swim nappy on too, as I always found that the swimsuit didn't look tight enough to keep anything in should the worst happen!!!".

Saturday arrived and I made sure Lily had her nap before we went to meet Elizabeth and Robbie at the swimming pool. We were early, so I let Lily wander around the reception area. Lily kept wandering over to the viewing area and squeeling with excitement and clapping her hands at the sight of the swimming pool. Lily made some friends with a couple of teenage girls who kept 'ooohing' and 'ahhing' over Lily and telling her how cute she was. After we'd changed and were walking past the adult pool to get to the baby pool, the two teenage girls saw Lily and screamed "Hello Lily! and waved at her. I was holding Lily at the time and she jumped up and down in my arms and squeeled and waved back at the girls and kept clapping her hands together (and slapping me in the face at the same time).

I thought Lily might be scared of going in the pool, but she absolutely loved it. She and Robbie had lots of fun kicking about and splashing each other in the water. Lily kept climbing out of the pool and then wanting to jump back in again. After a while, Lily didn't want me to hold her and kept trying to escape so there were a few hairy moments when I almost lost grip of her!

We're going to go swimming again next Saturday with Elizabeth and Robbie. I want to get Lily some arm bands and a rubber ring by then.