While Enzo may still be uncertain about lakes, we did find the perfect place to try and get him to warm up to a larger body of water than the bathtub.  We’ll check out a swimming pool one of these days, but in the meantime, a shallow man made swimming pond was perfect for his second water experience.

Since he fell asleep on the way there, he was a bit groggy as we got him in his swimwear and set up our towel and beach stuff.  He was very cautious about getting close to the water, so we stood him in the wet sand and just let him check everything out.  Then we put him a little closer with his feet in the water and he seemed good, so we had him sit down on the sand with his feet in the water. The whole time he was kind of quiet and Josh started building him some sand towers, but as soon as we ventured a little further out and he fell on his butt in the water, he started crying.  We decided to break for lunch, and that made all the difference.

After lunch he started gaining a lot more confidence, and with a full belly he watched the kids around us and started to have more fun playing with his toys and was even okay with walking out a little further in the water.  We’d sit in the water and he’d dump sand on his legs and it was a lot of fun for him.  There was another little boy with his grandmother who was eyeing Enzo’s dump truck, so we all talked for a bit and coaxed the two kiddos to try and play together.  They took turns pushing the truck for a few minutes, and then Enzo decided he had all the confidence in the world and was ready to run out into the water and all over the beach… talk about a 180.

I’m definitely looking forward to more water time with the kiddo, and there should be a few good days left in the summer to go back to the pond, but we’ll probably need to check out a pool as well. We’d really like to get him started in swimming lessons at some point – preferably this Fall, but we’ll see how that goes.  Since I can barely swim, it’s a high priority of mine that our kids learn early.