Swimming Begins

Swim practice began on Monday.  Josiah has it five days a week for two weeks.  He loves every minute of it!  He was nervous for the first few minutes of the first class, but when he came out of the water, he was all smiles.  He loves swimming.  I've been amazed at what he has learned to do already: glide, swim with his head underwater (and he has started to move his arms in the likeness of the freestyle stroke), and he gets rings at the bottom of the pool.  There is only one other child in his class, so they both get a lot of focused attention from the instructor.  It has been a great experience for him.

Observing on the first day.

Caroline was disappointed to learn she wasn't having swim lessons as she wanted to hop in the pool with Josiah.  We watch his class from an observation room.  We can see him, but he can't see us.  I think he just sees a mirror like in the police interrogation rooms.  Henry seems to have no opinion one way or the other.  I was hoping that watching Josiah swim would spark more of an interest in him.  While he shows very little interest at the pool, he has been doing "riskier" things in the bathtub.  Just the other night, he called me in to show me he had put his ears under the water.

We tried to get some more water time in with friends from our Awana group who happen to live really close by.  We went to our neighborhood splash pad, but couldn't get the thing to work.  We just received a neighborhood newsletter that listed all the new improvements they had done to the splash pad so we were slightly miffed by the not working part.  Later, the lawn guys showed up and said it doesn't work on Wednesdays because they mow.  The kids still enjoyed a picnic together and several games of hide and seek.  Caroline has associated the splash pad with the word "picnic," so she has been asking to go back to the picnic for the rest of the week.

I have been a bit on edge at meal times.  Since Josiah watched the Food Network Kids' Baking Championship, he has felt the need to judge my meals.  He rates them on a scale of his making and tells me if I've done a good job or not.  Ironic, really, since his palate only has a taste for: pizza, spaghetti, samples at Costco, restaurant food, and dessert.  Of course, it's not like he has ever kept quiet about how he's felt about every meal he has eaten anyway.  
I want Josiah to help more in the kitchen.  I want him to help so that he can learn not just kitchen skills, but to broaden his tastes for different foods.  But, oh, it requires so much patience for our very, very persistent child!  He and I both made a fruit salad the other night.  He made one for our family, and I made one for our mom's night out (it was wonderful!).  He loves cutting things.  And he wanted to cut everything.  So, he did a great job quartering strawberries and halving grapes (good for math, too).  He also chopped up a nectarine, but then decided he liked peaches better.

We had a fun time at the library this week.  A local art group hosted a FROG (Fully Rely On God) event.  We really had no idea what it was, except that it was arts & crafts and it was free.  They had stations set up of different art projects: bead/necklace making, origami, painting, "how to draw," face painting, computer/digital art, and a tattoo station.  (Not sure how a press-on tattoo fit into the mix, but the kids liked it.)  The kids were told if they got all of their stations checked off, there would be a prize for them at the end.  Unknown prizes at the end are always a motivator!  So, for the first time ever our kids got their faces painted.  They have never wanted it done before, never expressed any interest whatsoever, nothing.  But they wanted that box checked off.  Caroline didn't even stop at one request.  She got a bow on her forehead and a crown on her cheek.

Henry chose a Batman mask (and insisted on several poses).


Josiah went with the theme and got a frog face.  On the drive home, he wanted to take pictures of himself...


And their prize at the end was a basket of pine cones of which they could pick one.  A very artsy prize indeed.  They spent a good bit of time Saturday morning painting their pine cones.  So now we have very beautiful and very large pine cones, and we're not totally sure where to put them just yet.

I do have to give a shout out to Todd, because after the kids' got their faces painted, I left that evening for my mom's night out with other CC moms.  That left Todd to scrub off all of the face paint.  Henry had expressed to me earlier that he wanted to keep his face paint on to show family members when we see them in June.  So, I know it wasn't easy to get the kids to wash it off.

We also surprised the kids with a celebratory lunch for finishing up their school year.  Although it's not technically over just yet, we celebrated early.  The boys even got an ice cream dessert after their lunch.  Henry is very excited to start kindergarten.  He keeps asking when we'll start it.


Caroline wanted a picture with the table decor.

Henry found a true friend in his Sunday school class.  He has mentioned his name to me several weeks in a row now.  I was so happy to hear he found a friend.  Then I found out today that they may have bonded over facial/head injuries.  Henry said this little boy came to class today and said he had staples in his head.  Why?  His brother pushed him into a mailbox.  So the whole drive home we talked about staples in the head and how that happens.

Before we left church, Henry asked to get a picture of him in the hand chair.  It was pretty perfect that the chairs were their favorite colors.  Green for Henry and purple for Caroline.


We have another week of swim coming up, which pretty much defines our time right now.  That and we're just trying to finish up our school year as the end of the month approaches.