Gabby Swims Solo

Gabby and I have been going to the pool alot in last week. She has always been comfortable in the water, never afraid to get her head or face wet. Earlier this week we began doing submarine rides where she holds onto my back as we go underwater for awhile. I have been swimming progressively further and further with her underwater with each day until we can make it about a half a length at a time. She likes to say what she wants to search for each time we go down. So far the list includes; dolphins, whales, octopus, sharks, fish, and crocodiles. She will point in which direction she thinks the animals are in and off we go.
Swimming on daddy's back is one thing but swimming solo was a pretty scary prospect for Gabby. Earlier in my work with her she had a couple experiences where she went underwater when trying to swim to me and it made her pretty afraid to let go of me or the wall. As we have been working this week I noticed that she seemed more and more comfortable, hanging onto the wall with one hand while she would go under water to have a look around. The past two days I left her "floaty" at home, taking off the training wheels in a way. Yesterday I was having her do an exercise where we go to the bottom and she kicks to pull me up and "rescue" me. She really liked it and I could feel that her kick was getting stronger. I decided to take a risk and let her go once we got underwater to see how she reacted. As I let go of her she looked surprised but not panicky, she kicked hard and came toward me. I picked her up out of the water and she smiled as she asked to do it again! We quickly went under again and once again she kicked her feet and came toward me. The next time she asked to swim toward the wall about two meters away and I gave her a push to help her out. She made it to the wall and to my surprise, without taking a breath, turned around and pushed off the wall and kicked back to me. I couldn't believe how big of a breakthrough she could have in one day. On the walk home she wouldn't stop talking about how she wanted to tell mommy about what she had done.
Today we swam again so I could capture all of this on video. A new addition today was her use of hands in a breast stroke kind of motion. The next stage will be for her to float on her back without help and swim on her back. I don't know who is having more fun, her or me. Life is funny, teaching swim lessons in my teens is what helped me find that I wanted to be a teacher. Now that I'm teaching my daughter I get the same feelings I did back then.