She's a Star(fish)!!

On Thursday, Ella had her swimming evaluation, something they do during the second to last week of each session. And apparently, my little prodigy was promoted to Starfish!!

Now, let me explain why this is super cool. First of all, I realized yesterday that Ella started swimming lessons less than one year ago. She started as a Pike. Two sessions later, she was moved to Eel. A mere one session later, she was moved to Ray, where we figured she'd remain for quite some time. But not so, my friends. Not so.

I would wager to guess that she is easily two years younger than the other kids in Ray. And she holds her own! If you haven't seen this kid swim, you've really got to. I mean, she's FOUR. I think (and I have no idea whether or not I am correct) four is early to know how to swim. But she doesn't just do the dog paddle. Oh no. She is doing the freaking breaststroke--and she is actually pretty rocking at it. She can also do the backstroke (though that needs work per her evaluation). She can dive too.

This is the Y description for the Starfish program:

Starfish (Advanced)
For children who have mastered swimming 20
feet on front, back and side without flotation
as well as a basic understanding of breaststroke
and elementary backstroke. Teaches advanced strokes and diving.

It's worth noting that this is practically the LAST stop on the swimming lesson road. I'm not kidding. They have a class called Youth Aquatics, but it's for ages 6 to 14. They have another class called Little Iggys, which bills itself as for kids not yet ready to join the swim team. But that's for kids ages 8 and up.

The other day, I actually found myself thinking about when Ella would be ready to join swim team. And then quickly realized it would be ridiculous to put a five-year-old on a team that practices for two hours twice a week. Plus, I'm sure there's an age limit.... Of course, back in my gymastics days, we had plenty of kids nearly that young on our teams. But that's (obviously) a consideration for another day since as good as Ella is at swimming, she's not nearly strong enough yet to swim more than one length of the pool at a time. Because she's four!

I'm taking her to swimming on Thursday, so I'll try to catch some video footage even though I don't think cameras are allowed on the deck of the pool. I'm just so proud of this kid!