Swim Lessons

I finally did it.  After three summers of saying I was going to put Rex in swim lessons and then waiting too long that summer was nearly over, so what was the point?  Or we're about to go on vacation so after this and then summer's bascially over, what's the point?  I did it.  June 2nd I signed both him and Alice up .  And it was a fun, but tiring two weeks.  Here's how it went Monday through Thursday for two weeks:

wake up

8:30 rush out of the house because no matter how early, I get up it's still a rush at the end

8:50 (hopefully): arrive at swimming lesson.  Drop Rex and Henry off at child watch

9: Mommy and me lessons with Alice

9:30 change, fed Henry, drop Alice and Henry off at child watch, pick Rex up from the older child watch, Rex changes into swimsuit

10: drop Rex off at swim lessons, hurry up to fitness floor for a quick workout

10:30 pick Rex up, pick Henry and Alice up, eat a snack, change back into now wet swim suits, swim for fun

12 take a very tired and often screaming Henry home for a nap

It was exhausting.  But productive.  Ms. Alicia was great--played lots of games to entertain the children so they didn't know they were practicing swimming.  I loved having half an hour each day devoted just to Alice, time she doesn't normally get.  Alice learned not to jump into pools but to cautiously climb in and then how to monkey arm along the side of the pool to the ladder to get out.  Exactly what I wanted her to learn.

 Rex, on the other hand, learned to jump in the pool and how to paddle back to the side.  In our free time swimming after lessons, he jumped in, swam back, jumped in, swam back, jumped in, swam back, jumped in, swam back...you get the point.  He also learned how to float on his back and how to hold his breath under water.  And he enjoys it.  I think he liked tee ball because we wanted him to like it.  I think he liked swimming because he likes it.  It suits his personality better--more movement, more silliness, more games--less standing around.  He practiced specific things he wants to get better at, such at diving under water to get toys and floating on his back.  Not to go lie, I like that he likes swimming.  It's just a good sport--individual so he can swim past high school when he'll no longer have publicly sponsored teams; low impact so he'll preserve all his precious cartilage; full body so he'll stay fit.  Love it--it's like running, but wetter and better.  It's unfortunate that I can't swim and you have to get wet to swim and there's no such thing as a swimming BOB or I'd be a swimmer too.

I was so pleased with all the children learned that I nearly signed them up for a second session, but then decided that I wanted some summer time to swim for fun, so I didn't.

#2 &14

We're not so slowly working our way through our summer bucket list.  #2 was go to Patriot's Point (a WWII air craft carrier turned military museum), which we did last Friday.  My mom came into town and we all drove down for a fast weekend in Charleston together.  My dad was working there for a few weeks so we met up with him down there.

On our way we stopped at the Columbia temple.  Two out of 10 temples visited for the summer.

 We went straight to Patriot's Point when we got into Charleston.  Mom met Dad outside and then went and looked at houses while the rest of us descended into the seventh circle of hell for the afternoon.  Seriously, it was hotter than Hades in that aircraft carrier, and I had a fussy Henry strapped to the front of me the whole time.  But Rex and Alice were troppers, especially considering that we had no stroller--sailors don't really worry about things like that so didn't bother putting a whole bunch of elevators on the ship.

Looking down one of the ladder staircases. Alice made Greg carry her down all the stairs, but Rex conquered his fear of just about everything and went up and down like a champ.

Testing out a cockpit

In the briefing room, getting ready to head up to the flight deck

Pumping up the crew for the flight--funny thing, I have pictures of me and Greg doing the same thing when we visited for our 4th wedding anniversary.

Kid heaven: buttons to push

Greg being super safe and sticking his head in a jet engine

And then he put Alice in one

On the flight deck looking at the Ravenall Bridge

Fly into the danger zone! (It's an F-14.  The plane Tom Cruise flew in Top Gun)

First time to the dentist.

After dinner, we took the kids back to my parents' hotel, and Greg and I went on a haunted Charleston tour, which is on my life long bucket list.  So fun.  Totally recommend it.  Not too gimicky.  Not too stupid.

Saturday, we went to Folly Beach.  #14 on our bucket list. And I was super excited--you know how people talk about the beach--just relaxing, listening to the waves, swimming, playing the sand.  I forgot that sand is literally the worst thing on the planet.  I hate sand.  And then to have to sit in it all day long...but we had a lot of fun.  For my West Coast family and friends, here on the East Coast, the water is actually warm so swimming is enjoyable and gets you out of the sand (temporarily--or until you get knocked over by a wave and roll around in it for a while trying to get to shore or was that just Mom who did that).  My parents joined us a while after we got to the beach (they were looking at houses again).  My parents belong on the beach.  You should have seen those two frolic in the waves.  It was precious.  And they both lost their sun glasses in the water.  Good thing Mom's were from the dollar store; Dad's on the other hand...well, he has good insurance.

Due to the amount of sand at the beach, I left the real camera in the car.  I also didn't want to mess my phone up too much (water + sand + children = no good) so I didn't really take any pictures.

Henry literally chilled in the tent the entire time.  I did want a sun-burnt, sandy baby.

 Alice joined him after a while.

 The kids also enjoyed the hotel.  I don't know what it is about hotels, but I also really enjoy being in one.  Maybe it's because I only have about 100 square feet to maintain and the housekeepers make the beds.  I don't know, but we had a lovely trip to Charleston and I vote my parents move there so I have an excuse to visit more often.

The Entitlement Generation

Rex smiling while getting his trophy from Coach Williams.

 I've been thinking about trophies a bit lately--I won't say a lot because it was really only for about 20 minutes while I drove home from Mutual one night while listening to a story about trophies and entitlement on NPR.  Rex's end of season banquet was coming up and he was super looking forward to getting his trophy.  And going to Chuck E Cheese, although he had never been that he could remember (we took him when he was about a year and half maybe two).  So I was wondering if I was ruining my child by giving him a trophy.

And I decided no.

Don't get me wrong: I hate trophies. But not because they are given out like candy to any kid who pays to play a sport--it's like the uniform,  you get it just for showing up the first day.  The fact that they wait until the end of the season to pass out the trophies is just a formality.  They may as well come in the mail with the flyer announcing sign ups for the sport.  I hate trophies because they are just one more piece of junk that I have to display, however tacky the trophy is, and dust and deal with.  I am so sick of crap.  And I know my mom has boxes and boxes of trophies from all five of her kids, except Amber who took a picture of hers and then donated them.  I do not want to store these plastic pieces of *&@!^% for the rest of my life!

Nevertheless, despite my hatred of storing trophies, I don't think they ruin kids.  Maybe Rex is just sheltered but he has no idea that trophies used to be reserved solely for the the winning team.  So the idea that he doesn't deserve a trophy because his team didn't win a single game (they don't keep score in tee ball), doesn't resonate.  To him, a trophy is his reward for standing, super bored, in the hot sun once a week for two months.  We reward kids for all sorts of stuff--really it's more like bribing.  So why hate on trophies so much?  Unless you are willing to cut all all bribes, including the "if you go to sleep I'll buy you a Slurpee in the morning" one, then give your kid a trophy.  It's just fun for them to be recognized for putting up with their parents' misremembered fondness of 5-year-old sports.

Besides, I bribe myself all the time--don't eat that cookie and I'll buy you a new shirt.  Unfortunately the cookies usually wins and I'm left with my spit up on nasty t shirt from 10 years ago.

One last side note: I asked Rex if he thought he'd like to play tee ball again next year.  His response: No.  There's too much running.  I want to play soccer instead.  Ummm....I don't you understand what soccer is, young man.

Atlanta

The first weekend in June we got busy on our summer bucket list.  The biggest knife show in...the world?  the United States?  I'm not sure, a big knife show was in Atlanta and Greg went.  The kids and I decided to tag along.  We only stopped once on the way there (it's four hours away) to clean up some puke and a poopy diaper.  Then we dropped Greg off at the knife show and headed to the temple.  One of ten temples for the summer visited.

 Then we headed to Legoland Discovery Place, which was not so cool.  Rex had a ton of fun.  Alice, Henry and I...well it's a good thing Alice and Henry got in free and I found a coupon for a BOGO for me and Rex.  Basically, we paid $19 to play with Legos.  Really.  Most of the place was just buckets of Legos.  There were a few rides, but Rex was too chicken to go on them.  He built cars and raced them down tracks while Henry tried to sleep, but it was super loud and not because of the kids.  The music was turned up too loud (holy cow I sound like my mom).  And Alice kind of ran around for a while and then hung on the stroller.

 We attempted to sleep in a hotel--we won't go into that, but not much sleep was had.  Saturday Greg had intended to spend at the knife show but decided to spend the day with us instead.   We went to Cenntial Olypmic Park.  There was this rad slide:

 Then we headed over to the splash pad for a while.  Alice suddenly became very afraid of water, but Rex had a good time.

 Then there was a water show, which was just too much for Alice.

We ended that day with some sea salt and chocolate popsicles and drove home.

All in all, I must say: there are worse places to live than Charlotte.  Atlanta, for example.  While Atlanta does have a temple, the drivers are terrible.  We were in the city for just over 24 hours but got stuck behind 5 accidents.  I kid you not: five.  Five.  Let me say that again: FIVE!   Now that is ridiculous.  Stupid drivers.

grad*u*a*tion

Tuesday the big finally arrived--GRADUATION.  We've been prepping for weeks:  cupcakes with little hats, streamers, balloons, cards, gifts, sitting arrangements.  And Tuesday was the day.  Joy School Graduation.

Not really.  I mean, Tuesday was Joy School Graduation but we prepped by going to Wal-Mart to get Alice a life vest so she could swim during the pool party after the graduation.  The graduation itself lasted about 5 minutes, if that.  Although there was one speaker--she talked about making friends and being social, which is apparently what preschool is really all about.  You should talk to my friend Scarlet, she'll make you feel so much better about your kid not being a super genius and reading at age three, but super bad if your kid can't share.

So Rex is done with preschool now.  He starts kindergarten in just over two months and he can't be more excited.  And to tell you the truth, I'm pretty excited too.  I love back to school shopping--all the paper, and pencil and coordinating your pencils to your backpack.  My sister Hannah understands me.  I would be more sad about Rex growing up except that he's so excited and I have to say that watching him grow up has been a lot of fun.

See how formal our graduation was?

Rex was so excited about getting in the pool that he wouldn't stand still for a picture.

When we first moved to Charlotte, my visiting teacher was Jenny Fife and on her first visit to me, she told me how to loved to watch her kids play.  I thought that was weird, why wouldn't she just go play with her kids instead of watch them?  Rex was 2 and very (even more so than he is now) demanding of my attention--watching him play was not an option.  But now, I do just love to watch him play.  He's really into Legos and will build and rebuild airplanes and cars and boats for hours and hours.  I can't think of anything but a series of cliques about the overflowing, gushing love I have for this little creature that I created that is turning into his own person, who thinks and creates and problem solves and whose not-too-nimble fingers fumble with the tiny pieces and don't quite have the strength to completely connect two bricks, but he's still there imagining and exploring what ifs and occasionally getting out a book and following the instructions to build a cherry picker.  And it's exciting and I see that I've accomplished something:  not only have I kept him alive for five years, but he's growing and developing.  But I don't get to watch for long though.  He's discovered that he can do two things at once: so while he plays with Legos, I read Harry Potter to him.  We finished the second book today and while he only understands about 70% of what's going on, I love that we have that picture perfect, quite family time with Greg, Rex and Alice playing Legos, and me reading Harry Potter out loud while feeding Henry.

Rex took my phone one day and took some pictures of some of his planes--these are from April.  His designs are a bit more complex these days.

But five has been a hard year for me.  I'm staring to hear a lot of "I hate you Moms" and "You're mean" or "Mom is the worst mom ever."  And I'm not sure what to do about it--he's looking for an emotional response from me.  I refuse to give him that, but do I just ignore him and let him express himself or do I tell him that hurts my feelings and that that sort of talk is not nice or polite?  As you can probably guess, Rex is spending increasingly more time in time out--by choice, kind of.  He gets one minute of time out for every year old he is then if he's ready to talk about why he's in time out in complete sentences then he can come out.  He's not usually ready after five minutes.  Rex has been testing his limits a lot lately--doing just one too many pokes, or bullying Alice or refusing to do chores.  And throwing a lot more tantrums when he gets negative consequences for his actions--whine about not getting tucked in first, then you don't get tucked in at all.  So while I enjoy him and love watching him play and grow, preschool graduation and the coming start of kindergarten is also not the sentimental emotional day it might have been if he didn't throw so many tantrums.

Harry-mine

I've been reading Harry Potter out loud to the kids that last few weeks, which has turned into many discussions of our Halloween costumes (yes, Halloween is that big of a deal around here).

Alice is in a particularly good mood because she was supposed to go to bed 3 hours ago and has been running around the house for those 3 hours so has to get her cute on if she doesn't want a spanking.  

Put it all together and what do you get?

SuMmEr!

Happy summer everyone.  Hope you enjoyed your first day of summer--aka Memorial Day.  Rex asked several times what we celebrate at Memorial Day (for Easter and Christmas, Greg and I send a lot of time explaining and teaching and demonstrating why we celebrate the holidays), and I half-heartedly explained about remembering people who died in wars, but really what I wanted to say is SUMMER!  We pagen-ly welcome warm weather but donning our whitest whites,  roasting hot dogs, and worshiping the sun by sitting under it all day as it turns our winter white skin to a glossy shade of painful pink.  Those of us who don't despise shopping, do that.  (I'm such a good example of gratitude and patriotism I can hardly stand it--as a side note, Rex has also recently learned the definition of sarcasm).

We started the day with cleaning and trying to get all of Alice's stuff out of the nursery and into her now-shared room with Rex.  At noon we headed over to Parker's Paradise--a fire pit complete with flagstone and hammocks the neighbor boy built behind their house.  We were trying to have a Wheatley Compound cook out but our new neighbor didn't come.  Attempt at neighborliness and friendship made.  We roasted hot dogs and popsicles for a few hours with the Wheatley's despite the new neighbor's absence.

As soon as we got home we got in the car to go strawberry picking.  Greg was itching to make some jam.  We broke up into teams--Greg and Rex were to pick a gallon and Alice, Henry and I were to pick one.  I started down my first row, Alice holding the bucket behind me and Henry strapped to my chest and starting picking away.  Half way down the row, I turned to look in the bucket to see how I was doing: it was empty.  Alice had eaten all the strawberries.  Not to be deterred, I continued down the row and onto the next when Alice informed me that she was done and wanted to go back to the car.  And then she started whining.  And then crying.  And I continued to pick.  I showed her which strawberries to pick.  More whining.  Louder crying.  I picked my way over to Greg, surrendered my bucket, put a now screaming and crying Alice on my back and returned to the car. 

Look just sky!  I miss sky.

Alice sat down in the strawberry plants and cried/whined about going back to the car until I gave in.

She was much happier in the shade and relative cool of the car.

 By the time we got home, Alice's temperature was 102.something.  Oops.  I fed Henry then made waffles and smoothie with fresh strawberries, threw the hot dog/smoke/Popsicle/strawberry/syrup/etc. covered children in the bath and put everyone to bed--including myself.  So welcome summer.