Weekend Update - Swimming Edition

I was credited with two quality food ideas this past week. One, was to alternate the tarrito of fruit with Bianca's real food - veal, pepper, leek etc - so that she would actually eat all of her lunch. Bam! The second, crap I can't remember.
Bianca is eating much better though, all of her lunch and all of her merienda of fruit. My innovation was only necessary for a day or two.
That makes her happy, her mother happy, which in turn, makes me happy. We started red pepper on Friday and, with that, I think we have run the gamut of veggies. We also discovered that giving Bianca a thick piece of carrot will keep her quietly gnawing while we eat dinner. With only her bottom teeth she can't break any pieces off and she loves just chewing on it.
The Concello de Ferrol runs a lot of activities down at the Malata area. You can find Malata on Google Earth. In the same building as the futbol stadium for Racing Ferrol is a gym and an indoor pool. The pool holds Natacion para bebes on Saturdays, but it is a very limited class. The only way to gain entry is to call on the second-to-last day of the month to check for availability and then go down to Malata at 7am on the last day of the month and sign up. Ewa had called on the 29th and there were spots. So, dutiful partner that I am, I showed up at the pool at 6:45am the following morning to see a line of people, Spanish People, at the door to the pool. 6:45am. Unheard of. Some, I quickly realized, weren't there to sign up for anything as they had what looked to be gym bags, which led to my second culture shock of the morning, namely, that there is a gym there that opens at 7am. Again, 7am.....in Spain. I was ready to duck lightning bolts. 7am, and the doors open. The guys waiting to get their lift on storm in. I could have too, but I decided not to tempt fate and politely held the door and took up my proper place in line once we reached the top of the stairs. I was the 11th person in line. I only counted two women of child bearing age ahead of me....so there's a chance. 1 of them signed up for the 4:45pm class on Saturday; a shit time if ever there was one. The other tried to sign up for the same, but being told there were only 1pm spots, declined. So what if it took 25 minutes to process 10 people, I got the last and only 1pm spot. Karma smiled and I called a grateful wife.
Fast forward to today. The whole fam, all 3 of us, show up at 12:45 for our first lesson. Mom, with the camera; Dad, with the pink gym bag; and Bianca, excited. We were somewhat disheartened to find out only the participating parent could be on the pool deck, but Ewa took it in stride and away we went. Changing yourself, and your baby, in a guy's locker room ain't easy. You don't want her touching anything, sitting anywhere that may recently have been in contact with someone's body, or worse; as her hands, after sampling anything, confirm the new sensation with a taste test. We overcame that, and bedecked in her pink suit with her aquatic diaper, Bianca bounced in my arms as we hit the pool. We sat on the edge and splashed so she could get accustomed to the water temperature and then we went in. The instructor gave us a noodle, bent into a 'U' with a two-holes noodle-esque washer to hold it. Bianca went into the cradle of the 'U' and we played in the water. Only 3 other people were in our clase, 2 dads and 1 mom. The clase consisted of encouraging your child to kick while trying to keep them from putting toys in their mouth, swallowing pool water, and generally, drowning. For 45min she never cried, but she didn't kick much either. She was just watching all the other people and was fascinated by my swim cap. I think next lesson she'll be more outgoing. The suit change, shower off, dry off, get dressed manuever was slowly, yet carefully executed and we reemerged from the locker room to see Ewa waiting. Big smiles all around, Ewa had signed up for tennis lessons in the interim, and we all went home and had lunch; and Bianca promptly snoozed.