Floatie free! Sorta

Today was Maile's last day of swimming lessons! She started three weeks ago, cried the entire time during the first class. But by the end of the first week she was claiming she wished she could live at the pool. Mike had been taking her to the classes while I stayed here at home with Kale. Apparently the parents are not allowed to hang out by the pool, but instead are on some upper level and have a tiny window to look through--assuming other parents give you some room to do so. But today was the last day and all the parents were allowed to be by the pool and take pictures.




Kale and I went today so we could see all that Maile had learned. Her big thing to do is to go under water. She's so proud of herself and how she's able to hold her breath. Before the class was let out, the teachers put the kids in life jackets and floated them around in an inflatable boat--Maile seemed to like that a lot.

I'm super proud of her but scared at the same time. We will probably put her into another swimming class the next level up sometime in the near future, though. She's still a little nervous about swimming, and still needed some assistance from the teacher. Anyway, I'm super proud of her and how she got over her initial fear of swimming without floaties. She seems to want to continue to learn more and I'm all about supporting whatever she wants to do.

Interesting little thing happened today while waiting for Maile's class to begin. There was this other mother there with her kid who was in Maile's class who looked a little familiar. I thought I knew who she was for sure, but then decided she wasn't who I thought she was. As we were going into Maile's class she was behind me and said to me "You look familiar" and then said she wasn't sure if it was just from the swimming class (it wasn't--I hadn't been there before) or from somewhere else. Then she said she works at Baptist Hospital---and then I knew I was right about who she was. I then asked "Audiology?" and she said yes. She was the audiologist who I wanted to strangle!!! She was the one who was bound and determined to send us all the way to Shands Hospital in Gainesville for some test that they may or may not have even done on Kale! She was the one who was trying to convince us that Kale had hearing loss--the one who after I went to a different ENT doctor than the one she recommended, she still tried to intervene and was telling the new audiologist we were using that Kale needed to go to Shands! She caused us so much unnecessary stress for three loooong months before we sought out anyone else and then was still butting in. She's the one who wasn't confident in her testing and was trying to pass us off onto someone else--but once we got a second opinion locally she wasn't having it. Thankfully Dr. Chicola and his audiologist, Kina, listened to us and discovered that Kale didn't have hearing loss at all but just needed tubes in his ears.

Anyway. I was good and didn't scream at her or anything, but I was very cold with her and just pointed to Kale who I was holding at that moment and said, "Yeah, Kale." She knew right away who we were and said, "Oh, how is he? You used Kina and Dr. Chicola, didn't you?" and I told her yes, and that everything was great--that all he needed was tubes in his ears and he's been fine ever since. He actually has a follow up with Dr. Chicola this coming Monday--kinda funny how we ran into her of all people. I'm very proud of myself for not giving her a piece of my mind, but I do think she got the message that I am not her biggest fan.