Hats

Despite being adorable in this picture, Ian hates hats.

Hats have become a major source of entertainment for Anja lately, however. It started when she found her winter and mittens at Children's Place about a month ago. They are purple and pink and have owls on them (see previous blog entry). She loves to put them on and play hide and seek or try to scare people by pulling the hat over her eyes and running up to them and yelling "Hoot! Hoot!" It is rather entertaining. A hoot, if you will.

She also went with me to a high school swim meet a few weeks ago. She wore her owl hat, of course. We watched the diving and a few swim events and she was absolutely mesmerized. Although she's seen my swim caps before, she was fascinated by the fact that the girls were all wearing matching caps, but they all had letters on them (their last names). Add to that the fact that these girls were all swimming underwater, some even without goggles (!), she was suddenly a huge fan of the idea.

On our way home, Anja informed me (didn't ask, just informed) that she would wear her pink goggles to her next swim lesson and go underwater. Great, I thought. Now if only we hadn't lost her goggles over a month prior.

After a run to Target the next day where I learned from an employee restocking the golfing supplies that they don't sell swimming supplies year round since it's a summer activity (chew on that for a second), I decided to forget about it. I mean, really, it's not like she would remember that she wanted to wear them, anyway. There were still several days before her lessons anyway.

Then on Monday, the day of her lessons, I remembered who our daughter was. Not only would she remember that she wanted her goggles in order to be like the big girls, but that her goggles were a certain shade of "medium pink."

On the way to the mall after work on Monday, I remembered that there was one of those fancy schmanzy swim schools on my way home. You know, the kind with water that's warm enough so that the instructors can't tell that they just swam into a kid's pee? So I popped in and struck gold. Not only did they have the exact pair of goggles, medium shade of pink and all, that we had purchased the first time around, but they also had funny swim caps for kids. I found one that I thought Anja would approve of and took it home, expecting a "No way, Mommy!" when it came time to put it on.

I was wrong. She loves it!

Now, instead of screaming and crying at the thought of going underwater, she proudly wears her kitty swim cap and goes underwater free of will. With, or without, those goggles.