Seven Month Old and Swimming

Noe is seven month old! Happy 7/12 birthday, Noe!

Oh and another good news, my brother Reza just had his fourth baby, a girl, in Rudolffinner Haus hospital, Vienna, Austria. Good job, brother! Both of you are surely fertile! So far, they haven't decided the name yet. We'll give you the update once we got it.

Having reached his seventh month, Noe hit another small milestones. Like, sucking his toe for comfort.

He LOOOOVEESS standing up. If there's nobody he can ask to lift him up, he would lift himself up by holding onto whatever he can hold onto. Look at his "gotcha" expression here!

Noe also passed a very important milestone towards manhood, that is to learn to flirt with Maysa, our neighbour's daughter. He did it from the windowsill.

Okay, next topic!

Remember, a few weeks ago we took Noe for a swimming lesson in Aquaducks at Suntec?

Well, we decided not to continue with Aquaducks and signed up for Marsden Swim School instead, for a number of reasons. First, Suntec pool is too far to our house compared to Marsden. Second, the price is better in Marsden. Moreover, for the better price, Marsden also limit each class to only six people, and with this, every student receives a fair and ample amount of teacher's attention. Compared to fifteen people in Aquaducks, it really felt too crowded (I also don't think this is healthy for the baby). In Marsden, there are a lot of tricks done with the parent and teacher together. Like this, Jesus Christ ... er... I mean Jason Marsden teaches the baby the basics of swimming towards the parent.

The class is taught using songs to emphasize the movements in the water.

As a preliminary step towards diving, Jason dunked Noe into the water. Now this photo really looks freaky, as if it is really dangerous. But Jason is really experienced! The whole dunking thing only last about two seconds or less, and Noe didn't drink any pool water at all. Noe didn't cry or scream at all!

This animation will try to show the dunking experience in detail.

Indi also practiced what's taught in the Water Babies book. This is to teach Noe to enjoy floating and relaxed on water.

As usual, Noe is still puzzled about all this swimming thing. He didn't seem to thoroughly enjoy it, but he also didn't cry or scream to get out of water. So, we take it as a good sign and we just need to swim more often, so that he would get use to the water. Of course, no more than 30 minutes for each swimming session.

Basically, Marsden and Aquaducks use the same methods: playing and singing and moving in the water. But with less student per class in Marsden, the teacher seems to interact with the class far better.

Note: To be simple, we call the class "swimming lesson", although the baby is not really learning proper strokes. The class is actually "water familiarization class", to get the baby used to water and evoke its instinct to swim naturally.