Let the Activities Begin

Our first full week of summer vacation and we hit the ground running. Lydia has baseball Monday through Thursday in the morning and games will be Thursday nights starting in a couple weeks. Audrey has tee ball every Wednesday night. Lydia and Audrey have swim lessons every day before lunch. Lydia has violin on Thursday mornings. Charlie comes along for the ride because by the third child we figured out that paying $75 to go in a pool with your kid and sing, "Look Who Came to Swim Today," isn't worth it when you can just go swimming by your dang self and toss her in the water.

I LOVE keeping the girls busy. They are occupied, they fight less, they don't get out every single toy we own and leave it in the front yard, and they are EXHAUSTED by bed time. Like, their head hits the pillow and they're out.

A few things that have happened this week:

• Lydia has Coach Nick for baseball again. Lydia LOOOOOOVES Coach Nick and Coach Nick has a soft spot for Lydia too. It's a good situation.
• Jayson and I have been taking turns biking to baseball with Lydia and then going on a ride while she has her practice. Biking with a child is not easy. Unless the road is completely flat. If it's uphill, her legs hurt. If it's downhill, she's scared. But, she's getting the hang of it. I'm amazed at how far she has come this spring.
• Audrey passed Lydia in swim lessons on the second day. When it happened, Lydia was OK with it and figured she would just pass to the next level the next day. She didn't. Audrey was in the deep end learning the freaking front crawl while Lydia was bobbing with her kick board. It was humbling for her. And heartbreaking for me. I wanted to tell Audrey how amazing it was that she passed a 7 year-old and was already in level 4, but it was hard to do when the 7 year-old was Lydia. It was a good opportunity for me to talk to Lydia about many things, including: Staying positive, not worrying about others, staying focused when she's supposed to be listening, and emphasizing her strengths. She asked me in tears, "Tell me again all the things I'm better at than Audrey."
• Audrey is a fish. She would wear her swim cap and goggles all day long if we let her.
• We have a playdate tomorrow with one of Audrey's friends. His mom told me that she thinks he would die if he had to go the whole summer without seeing Audrey. We can't let that happen. This kid is awesome and I can't wait to have him over. When Audrey had her birthday party, he was super into the water, so we're planning on a lot of water play again. Audrey wants to have a lot of playdates this summer, so I'm going to try to do one every week or so.