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. 

New Heights

We joined our gym a little over five years ago, when Lydia was almost two. One thing we really like is the pool. It has a zero-depth entry and equipment for the kids to play on. It also has a water slide. You have to be 48" tall to go down the water slide. Lydia has been looking forward to the day when she would be tall enough for quite a while. Every time we went swimming, she would check her height, and when we shook our head, she would be disappointed.

Then Sunday night it happened. She went to measure her height and stood as tall as she could, and she was tall enough! Well, almost. I think she was a little short, but it was close enough. Then she wimped out and decided she didn't want to go down the slide. Finally, Jayson went down first and then she followed and she loved it. She spent the whole rest of our time there going down the slide and telling us how awesome it was. It was so fun to see how much she loved it. Now she keeps asking when we can go back.

November

It seems like we were just trick-or-treating, and now Thanksgiving is in four days. This month, Lydia and Audrey started swim lessons again, Lydia started skating lessons again, Lydia learned how to ride a two-wheeler (she taught herself!), Charlie has been making progress with potty training, and Charlie also learned how to ice skate (very slowly and cautiously, and only a couple feet at a time).

Charlie has also given up naps for the most part, much to Jayson's frustration. She doesn't go to bed well either, but it's actually kind of humorous because she sings to herself and tells stories and will randomly yell things, and eventually fades off to sleep.

Yesterday we had a very busy day. Caribou for coffee, Trader Joe's for groceries, Target for some odds and ends, Buy Buy Baby for some missing crib parts (yes, Charlie is still sleeping on a bed frame and we still don't have the correct parts to convert her crib into a bed, and we finally made some headway, but once again got the wrong parts.), Penzey's for some spices, Hockey Haven to sharpen some ice skates, skating at the Pettit for Lydia's lessons and then open skating with the family, Sam's for some pizzas, then our friends came over to eat dinner with us and watch the girls while Jayson and I had our bowling night.

The lack of naps caught up with everybody as evidenced by the breakdowns before we even ate breakfast and the constant arguing. So, after lunch today, it was family nap time. Usually family nap time isn't entirely successful. Usually one kid just isn't into it. Today it was Charlie, of course. But, after a while, she fell asleep too and the whole family was able to catch up on some sleep. The reward was sundaes after dinner.

Baseballs to the face and dunking babies. No really, it was fun.

Today was Lydia's second baseball practice. She got hit in the face with a ball and didn't cry, and that moment has gone on Jayson's list of Top Ten Proud Daddy Moments.

Audrey had swim lessons so I swam with Lydia and Charlie. Charlie's new favorite thing to do is go under water while I put my hands on her waist and glide her around. She asked me to do it over and over again. Just to make sure the other moms and lifeguard didn't think I was abusing my child by constantly dunking her, I made her say, "One, two, three, GO!" and then she would push her face in the water before I would glide her. She loved it. I loved watching her underwater with her big round eyes and huge toothy smile.

Our Daughters Turned into Fish

One thing that has always been important to me is that my kids know how to swim. All three were exposed to pools at an early age, and started swim lessons as babies. Charlie tends to get the shaft as the third child. Some days she's lucky she has pants on. But, swimming wasn't something I was going to let slip through the cracks with her.

From the start, Lydia and Audrey enjoyed lessons, but didn't take to the water immediately. They were a bit cautious. Not Charlie. Charlie squeals with delight as soon as she sees the pool and the slide and squirms and kicks until we let her in. She crawls into the zero-depth pool until her head goes under water and then looks up at us from under the water with huge eyes and an even bigger smile until we pull her out by one arm. She scrambles to the top of the kiddy slide and throws herself down as we cautiously spot her. She gets a mischievous look on her face and then lays down on her back and if the water is too deep, her face goes under and she flails her arms and sits back up, laughing. She puts her face in the water and blows bubbles, then inhales what I'm sure adds up to be gallons of water each time we swim. When we have lessons, she screams, and splashes and claps as we sing "The Children on the Bus" and "The Hokey Pokey."

Lydia and Audrey have been making progress with lessons, but tonight they both amazed me with how well they are doing. Audrey started the night by jumping from the side of the pool into my arms and as she landed, I would dunk her under. She loved it and asked me to do it again and again. I kept backing up, and she eventually started jumping in by herself without me catching her. She was ecstatic with her progress. Lydia showed me how she could "swim" under water, which really just consisted of flailing her limbs around and waving her head from side to side, but she did keep her head under the whole time! She sits on the side and does a little half dive thing into the water and tries to glide under the water. It's nice to feel confident that she could play in the pool by herself without me having to constantly keep an eye on her. The first five weeks of lessons, Lydia has had her's first and then we make her sit on the side while we have lesson with Audrey and Charlie, but today we let Lydia play in the pool and she did great and I didn't worry about her.

We have been trying to get Lydia and Audrey to go down the bigger slide at the pool, but both have been afraid. Tonight, we resorted to bribery, starting with Lydia. We offered ice cream, candy, even money and she wouldn't take it. Then Jayson offered her gum, and she was ready. Gum? Seriously? Definitely Jayson's genes. She nervously went down and of course, she loved it and couldn't get enough. Audrey also took the gum bait. It took a bit more cajoling to get her down, but she went! I was a little nervous as I saw her little arms splashing around and Jayson rushing to grab her and bring her to the surface, but she wasn't deterred! She went down several more times, with Jayson having to pull her little smiling wide-eyed face up to the surface, but she loved it. 

The best part? They went to bed with barely a peep. Swimming kids are tired kids.