Time for one of our regular check-ins on how Nyan’s swimming is coming along. Coming along fine, thank you very much!
Here he is with his teacher Pang, just before diving in for one of his weekly lessons:
More from the lesson. Completely fearless and casual. Such a change from when we first got to Singapore.
Just flopping around in the pool like a little fish:
Swimming all the way across the pool!
He’s also just about at the point where he can swim the entire length without stopping. Amazing!
One day in June, we got together with Kyle and his family for a fun-filled Sunday afternoon. We don’t see them often enough, but Nyan and Kyle always reconnect immediately and have a blast.
Here are the boys, goofing around.
We spent a little time at East Coast Park, catching bugs and listening to wild boars grunting in the jungle (heard them, didn’t see them). Kyle’s sister Kara is growing up nicely, and is developing a little bit of attitude, which she wasn’t afraid to show to Nyan!
The boys (and the girl) had a fun time playing various games and toys:
We ended the day with a very long, very energetic time in the pool. I think we were in the water for about two hours? Got home much later than planned, but it was well worth it.
Remember our last post, where we showed a couple videos of Nyan swimming in the infinity pool atop Marina Bay Sands? It should be obvious from that, that our boy continues to show steady progress when it comes to swimming. Let’s check out some other recent displays of his aquabilities:
Working on his strokes:
More working on his stroke, followed by some silliness:
Okay, so he still has some work to do on his form etc. But so much better than he used to be, so we’re quite proud:
At the end of a hard lesson, it’s always fun to get tossed:
On weekends, we don’t have swimming lessons. Instead, we get to play – sometimes with a toy boat, sometimes just practicing our leaping and jumping.
A couple of things Nyan did during the month of August:
One day, he went to his abacus grading exercise. See, he’s been taking an abacus class on Saturday afternoons for about a year, as a way to help him with his math. And in August, it was time for him to be graded, to see about moving on to the next level. Mommy and Daddy couldn’t be with him in the testing room; here are some pictures from outside the testing room, just before. Nervous? Nah.
And not nervous for good reason. Here’s the results:
That’s right: 100%. Well done, Nyan!
Another afternoon we attended a birthday party for Daniel, Nyan’s playground friend from the apartment complex. There was food, balloons and a clown show:
The big attraction, though, was the kiddie pool. Nyan of course has spent many, many, many afternoons in this pool and always manages to have a good time.
He had such a good time in the pool, in fact, that after he came out, dried off, put his clothes back on and got some cake, he wanted to get back in the pool. But didn’t want to take them time to change back into his swimsuit. No matter; in he went!
As you’ve seen, our young man has gotten quite good at swimming – both relative to how he was earlier, and in absolute terms. But not to worry: the lad still gets up to plenty of goofy and silly fun in the pool. Check out these videos.
When he’s in the little pool, he likes to show off some routines. All of which he makes up on the spot, of course. Like “Monorail Explode” or “Balloon Circle Explode.” It’s kind of like modern, interpretive dance, maybe?
Here he is in his “Famous” phase, featuring maneuvers like “Famous Shipwalking” and “Famous Airplane Wing.” Also “Famous Train Whistle.”
Spinning around like a, uh, like a corkscrew in a swimming pool, maybe.
Finally, here’s our hero, and Mommy, viewed from 20 stories up. Note that Nyan is (successfully) walking while wearing diving flippers.
Nyan continues to take weekly, hour-long swimming lessons in our condo pool, and he continues to get better and better. He’s at the point now where he can do several different strokes and shows zero fear in the “big pool” – i.e., the pool where he can’t touch the bottom while keeping his head above water. (Not to worry – we still stay right by him when he’s in the big pool.) Let’s take a look at some recent videos and pictures.
This gives a good overview. It’s in the big pool (with little sound, because Daddy shot the video from far away so as not to disturb the lesson):
Backfloat!
And the backstroke, of sorts, plus some other strokes:
Look at this. No fear:
He’s also learning to dive, sort of.
Some fun times: Nyan likes it when his teacher, Pang, tosses him high in the air:
And finally, just a few still pictures from various lessons and back-floatings.
One of our favorite recurring characters on this blog is Kyle, Nyan’s former classmate whom he’s stayed close to even though they don’t go to the same school any longer, and in fact get to see each other but rarely – once a month at best. But they definitely make the most of the time they do get to spend together. Like in mid-October, when Nyan spent the afternoon at Kyle’s new home.
Much of the action took place in the lovely swimming pool, where the boys played all sorts of games.
And splashed in the water.
And goofed around using a hollow swim noodle:
It being nearly Halloween, there was of course a skeleton hanging around.
But mostly it was just about two pals hanging out.
Back over the Christmas holidays, we took a family trip to Bali for five days or so. This Indonesian island is, in a lot of ways, the quintessential tropical island vacation spots, with beaches, hotels, nightlife, watersports, mountains and other beautiful scenery. And it’s only a two hour flight from Singapore! We were, to be honest, a little put off by the rampant over-development and traffic in some parts of the island – typical, of course, of any popular tourist destination, sadly – but other parts of the island were just stunningly beautiful.
Plus we had a nice hotel on the beach, with lush grounds and a great pool. Let’s check out a bit of what Nyan (and Mommy and Daddy) got up to. With lots of photos and videos!
Nyan played his first ever game of ping pong. Let’s just say that he needs a bit of practice.
We spent a lot of time away from the resort too. Ain’t Bali beautiful? (click on any photo to enlarge)
Mommy’s Aunt Jessica used to live on Bali. She lives in Japan now with her family, but they still own property in Bali, and happened to be on the island at the same time as us. So we got to hang out with them, including Nyan’s cousin Grace. They got along great.
They had fun drawing and coloring together:
More photos from around the island (and one from Changi Airport in Singapore on our way out):
Maybe the highlight of the trip was all the time Nyan got to spend in the resort swimming pool. And Daddy had borrowed a waterproof GoPro camera for the trip, so there’s plenty of video footage.
Goofing in the pool with Mommy and Daddy:
Doing something he called the ‘alligator slap’ and ‘whale swim’:
More splashing, plus making friends with a random woman:
Whale song:
Bali is known for its art and design, though we didn’t take too many pictures. Here are a few:
Music and dancing are also important parts of Balinese culture. Our resort put on a dance show one night. Nyan was suitably impressed:
Here are some shots from around the resort. Plenty of koi ponds, which gave Nyan plenty of chances to feed the fish:
Another night, they had a cocktail reception for guests, with live music. Nyan enjoyed it:
And finally, we leave you with this bit of brilliant nonsense. I think he wanted to send a video message to Grandma. Instead, we got this.
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In honor of Nyan’s recent breakthroughs in learning to swim, as you read about earlier, we dusted off some footage from mid 2014, soon after we’d moved into our apartment in Singapore, and before Nyan was entirely comfortable in the water. But he was obviously comfortable on shore, comfy enough to start to take off all his clothes as he stood there…
Want to see some videos from last July? Sure you do. Click Play:
Waling to the pool, carrying his inflatable seahorse:
Playing around, pants-less, outside the baby pool before finally dipping his toes:
Enjoying a pleasant swim with mommy and the inflatable seahorse:
And finally… showing off his new goggles!
We signed Nyan up for some swimming lessons with a local swim school here in Iowa, to keep up the momentum he’s built over the past few months in our pool in Singapore. So over the last six weeks, he went to something like 16 classes, 20 minutes each (short but really just about right for a short-attention-span toddler), at the indoor pool of a local motel. He had a variety of college age teachers, and they were all good, but his favorite was the one he got the most often, a young man named Max.
Over the course of the lessons, Nyan worked on his back stroke, forward crawl with a floating board, forward crawl without a floating board, putting his head under water (which he’s now comfortable doing, a HUGE step forward), and generally just getting more and more comfortable in the water. We couldn’t be happier with the progress he made. Here are a couple pictures of Nyan psyching himelf up for another training session:
Are there videos? There most certainly are.
Here he is in late June, early on in his lessons.
Working on the forward crawl (okay yes he could still use some practice):
Here he’s practicing his jumping into the water, and also a bit with putting his head under water:
Kicking on his back, all by himself:
More forward crawl. Getting better, we think:
The final lesson. Ignore the other kids screaming in the background and focus on how far we’ve come:
Okay, there’s plenty left to learn. He’s not quite ready to try out for the national Olympics team (whether that’s the US, UK, Singapore, or Burma) but he’s so much more comfortable in the water than he was even four months ago. And he’s got a very firm foundation to keep learning once we return to Singapore.
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