Isn't she cute?!?!

During our 1st swimming course one of the objectives is to get them to hold on to the side of the pool. Not only did Nellie NOT get this concept, but she was determined to only hold on to us. I took her swimming again on Tuesday (which she LOVED!!!!) and she did her horizontal submerge WITH A HOLD!! She actually managed to support her own body weight for 2 seconds (which is a massive improvement), and she seemed to really get the concept that she needs to hold herself up out of the water. She doesn't actually have the upper body strength to do it for long, but that will come in time.

The lack of upper body strength is also proving a problem in pulling herself up on other things. She just doesn't have the strength in her arms and needs a fair bit of pulling from us to get her vertical. She's improving, but it will be a while yet before she can pull herself up - not that she lets that stop her from trying! The poor mite is spending more and more time feeling frustrated because she can't get vertical.

Last night in the bath was just such a moment. As much as she LOVES the water, right now she loves being vertical more. She therefore tried to pull herself up on the side of the bath (at first choosing the side against the wall, which is impossible to hold onto!). This accomplished, she held on and supported her own body weight for several 10's of seconds without too much wobbling. The grins and chuckles of pure delight at this little achievment made me nearly cry, and made both Graeme and I laugh!

Anyway, I promised more photos.... so here are some we took while camping last week... playing in the tent at 5.30am, trying really hard not to wake our fellow campers...

and here she is wearing Dad's hat in the sun...

And now the silly webpage isn't allowing me to add any more photos... will continue on another day.