Holly Homemaker I'm not

Well, perhaps I should have taken Home Ec in high school instead of AP Biology. I haven't made much use of those fancy AP classes, but it sure would have been handy to have more basic skills. Still, I've been darning away lately, determined to make our clothes last a little longer. It's frustrating, but feels good, in the same way growing our little carrots and tomatoes does. 

In other news, Sam and I made headway today on GF waffles. Pancakes are good, but my kids love their waffles. Success! 

Ted graduated to the next level in Swim America last Thursday. His freestyle looks so much better, but I hope they keep reviewing it just in case. He should be ready to go on May 15 for the first RCF practice. Sam is going to do PreTeam this year, which will be fun. Our summer is shaping up to be a mellow one. June is all swim team, July is our KY vacation followed by 3 weeks at RMDC, then August will be a few weeks of chilling at the pool and getting ready for school (which starts so ridiculously early in mid-August.) Hopefully, we will either have moved or be in the process by the time Sam starts K. August would be a good month for this, as we have nothing planned. We shall see. 

Tomorrow will be Week 3 of waiting for the warranty company to move on our claim. Last Monday we were in the "engineer is drawing out a plan of repair" stage. Next will be having 2 bidding repair companies out; the warranty company will pay us the $$ of the lower bidder. Then we'll hire them and pay with that money. Let's hope we move to stage 2 sooner rather than later. Although, with June and July so local, I am OK with an August or September move, poor selling season that it is. 

Ah...back to the routine

It's nice to have the kids back in school, although today (Thursday) I spent the whole time with Ted and Mae. But anyway, I digress. Everyone seems happy to be back at school. Ted's been a TKD maniac. Now that he's in Leadership, he's allowed to SWAT (assist) in any class, so he went to 3 classes yesterday. He was exhausted but happy. I was hungry. I need to plan for this in the future. 

Today Ted had his first swim class with SwimAmerica. There were only 3 kids (all boys) in his lane with 2 instructors, so they had lots of attention. Today, the first day of the session, they reviewed. Since Ted didn't know any of the terminology, I was impressed with how carefully he was watching and listening. Afterwards, I told the instructor that Ted hadn't come from SwimAmerica, and she was surprised. She said she always had him go first in drills because he seemed so on top of it. She thinks he's doing great. Hooray. Ted had fun and liked the other kids and the teachers, so I think this'll be great. I'll totally put Sam in with him next Fall. Maybe even Mae too! *gasp* I can't imagine bailing on Judy, but the concept of all 3 kids at the same time is pretty appealing. We'll see. One step at a time. I knew almost all the other parents from Rock Creek Flyers; I didn't realize they were so connected, but I guess with Gretchen as the head coach of both, it makes sense. That was fun. 

I mentioned to Paul the bonus: at least Ted will get one shower in a week! He's been having some "personal hygiene challenges" lately, but wants a hot shower to warm up after swimming. Win-win! (Is this normal boy behavior? Lordy, you'd think he was allergic to soap or something, the way he carries on!)

Boulder Kids Tri

Well, today was fun! We got up at 5am and were at the Rez by 5:45, with gigantic balloon and bagels in tow. Sam was in the 1st Wave (ages 3-4) and got seriously confused about the "swim" portion. I walked him into the water, then walked down the shore to try and get a picture (I had the camera; Paul had the video). After all the kids (except Sam) had exited the water, I walked back to try and find him. I did, and held his hand while we walked (not quickly, mind you) through the water. He enjoyed the bike portion, getting faster as he went. The run portion was more of a meander. He was grumpy and hot at the end, but he finished. He was QUITE pleased with his medal and Sharkies.

Ted was, as usual, 100% into it. He didn't need any help at all with the transitions. Next year I'm just going to plant myself somewhere in the middle of each portion and try and get good pics. Paul had the video (with a complaining Mae on his back) and got some fun footage of Ted. He's in the orange bike shirt for the bike and run portions. Paul chose the music, by the way.

Ted's 1st Swim Meet

Tonight was the rescheduled 1st pre-team swim meet of the summer. Each child did one length of each stroke (free, breast, back, fly). Freestyle used to be, in my humble, non-swimmer opinion, Ted's weakest stroke; his arms were sloppy. But they must have worked on it this week because he did great! 54:06 (they were timed and the time written on their ribbon. Each child received a ribbon after every stroke. Really sweet.)
Breaststroke used to be his best stroke, since they did it with Judy. Ted was pretty slow at this one and seemed to have some sort of weird arm movement going on. 1:14:42. The couch said he was a die-hard butterfly, just look at those arms! Too bad he wasn't doing the butterfly at the time! hee.
Backstroke was awesome. Here's another stroke he does fast and efficiently. 47:03. His comment after that one was "This is a lot of work." hee.
And finally his favorite, the butterfly. At 1:08:96 (96?) it wasn't speedy, but it sure looked good. Their drills this morning at practice were mostly butterfly and it showed.
Great job, Ted and the Rock Creek Flyers! You rock!! They were clearly the youngest team. There were 3rd graders (Jordon and Jacob among them) and BIG kids in general on the other teams, who were faster and more skilled. I hope to keep Ted in pre-team as long as possible (because it's so mellow) so I can why these big kids are there. It did make our team look so very sweet! Some good pics on moeltini.

All this following a day at Lakeside with Alex and Adam. Last year Ted and Sam had a blast and Mae screamed the entire time, only consenting to go on one little horsey ride, with Sam. This year she started out the same, screaming that the roller coaster was too loud. Wendy and I thought it was going to be a long afternoon, but she got through it and actually went on quite a lot of rides, and enjoyed it! Hooray! We predict she'll take, oh, 3 more years, and then she'll try the roller coaster. Hee. Wendy took this shot and when I look at it I see what I've been doing for the past month with Mae. I may not feel like nurturing and comforting her all the time, but I really am trying. It's like the theory that if you smile, you'll eventually feel happy. If I hold and comfort her when she needs it, even if I don't feel like it, maybe soon I'll be able to do it without feeling annoyed. I am happy she ended up having a happy day today. Lakeside is very cute for little ones. I think Alex and Ted are getting a bit too old for it, but they still like it now. Today Alex and Sam seemed to pair up, while Ted and Adam palled around. They have similar personalities so it made sense. All in all, an exhausting but fun day.
The boys leave for Iowa tomorrow morning. Sweet dreams!

the garden is growing!!!

The garden is starting to perk up! The mint is doing great thanks to all the rain but everything else was starting to worry me. We have zero tomatoes! I don't understand! In years past, cherry tomatoes were the only things I could get to grow! I may get a few larger, further along plants and pop them in. Tonight Ted and I took a closer look at the carrots and sugar snap peas and lo and behold! They are up! They are still small (although we couldn't resist pulling up a few teeny carrots just to talk about root vegetables) but they are so cute! We started those from seed on February 22!! Talk about a long wait. The sugar snaps and carrots were the first to sprout. Hooray!! I just don't understand those tomatoes...

Today at swim practice Ted learned the "inchworm" move, the first step in Butterfly. Most of the kids would "wiggle, wiggle, rest... wiggle, wiggle, rest... "etc. Not Ted! He wiggled his way from one end and back again four times (which was the drill) with enthusiasm. After practice he said his stomach hurt. He'll have rock hard abs with that drill! They also did a few laps of "whatever you want to do" and he chose backstroke (usually he chooses breaststroke). He looked so confident and graceful. He is not a fan of freestyle at all (neither am I!). Coach Brooks said he was going to be great at the Butterfly. That's exactly what Judy says about Sam (he does the wiggle thing all the time, just to be fancy).

Monday is Shavuot, no camps for any of the kiddos so we'll do our bike to the pools routine. Tuesday Ted starts HHS camp and Wednesday Sam and Mae start JCC camp. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be our pool days for the next 2 weeks, although I expect we'll spend some evenings there as well so Ted can get some fun in. He is very tired after practice and usually lies on a chair for about an hour before getting in the water to play. He is also eating up a storm, probably due to the swimming. I am so happy he is enjoying it!

swim season!

This afternoon the Rock Creek Flyers had their first pre-season practice. It's an outside pool, but they had heated it to 83 and the kids were working pretty hard, so they were OK with it. There were quite a few sad little kids sobbing, so I was very glad I had already decided to follow Ted's lead (i.e., if he doesn't like the team, we'll quit. No big deal. No pressure. I want him to LIKE swimming.) He was great though and was surprisingly attentive and followed directions so well. He has really matured this year. More pics on moeltini.