First Lesson

Lily's swim class has 2 other girls and 2 boys in it. Amanda tells me that she is not the best nor the worst swimmer in the class either. She's still a bit tentative, but she is doing well. She was very excited to tell me on the phone how she did "bombs." That means sticking your head in the water and blowing bubbles. She isn't quite sticking her whole head underwater, but she is getting her face down there.

The biggest problem now is Noah. Apparently he wants to jump in the pool with Lily, so Amanda has to take him outside. I'm working from home today, so I plan to keep him. Maybe if Lily has Amanda's undivided attention she'll be a bit more brave.

Speaking of Noah, he is getting a little more talkative. Last night Lily went down to the basement for something. As soon as she left Noah yelled, "Yeelly! Where are you?" He's making progress.

Swimming

Lily has her first swim lesson of the summer today. She has lessons Monday - Thursday this week and next. This is the level two out of four. Hopefully by the time she is done with this she will be a lot more comfortable in the water. Last year she got the hang of the kickboard. Perhaps the best thing to come out of last year's lessons was that she can now wash her hair in the tub.

Besides that Lily and Amanda are working on a schedule for how Lily is going to spend her summer days. This may seem awfully rigid, but we find that Lily does better with some structure. Otherwise she is constantly nagging Amanda for something to do. This way she will have limits on her computer time, video time, mommy reading time, etc. Of course, Noah is something of an x-factor in all of this too.

Picnic

We usually try to do something at least a little bit special for breakfast on the day we don't go to church. Today Amanda made some scones and we took a picnic to Lake Crabtree. The kids enjoyed splashing in the lake a little bit and then had some fun in the playground. I even coaxed Noah into climbing the big ladder with some help. It takes him a few minutes, but he is getting braver.

Now we're back home and Noah is napping while Lily is watching a video. Amanda may take a nap of her own and I am going to study for the test I have tomorrow. Tonight I plan to grill some chicken since it's such a nice day for it.

Hmm...seems like we're maybe a week early for an All-American family day.

Pizza Party

We hosted a pizza party for the neighborhood kids yesterday. We had all the usual suspects: Cooper, Kelsey, Sarah, Katie, Michael, and Emily. Everyone seemed to enjoy the pizza, watermelon, and the cookies stuffed with icing.

However, things went a little bit south shortly after the meal. In fact, Lily wasn't even done with her cookie when Cooper was rallying everyone to play hide-and-go-seek around the yard. Lily didn't really want to play it, so he told her that she wouldn't have to be "it." Yet by the time the game started she was "it." I asked Cooper about that after the round was over and he said that she raised her hand (or maybe it was that she didn't raise her hand).

Then Cooper was trying to lead everyone back to his house to play. Basically, they weren't playing what he wanted to play so they were going to ditch Lily's party. Amanda explained to them that it is rude to eat and then ditch the host like that. They played in the basement for a little while and then went out to the neighborhood to play. Meanwhile, Michael (age 3) and his sister Emily (2 1/2) were kind of left with Amanda and me since they couldn't really play with the big kids. Of course, we had Noah too.

After I put Noah to bed we found Lily sitting on the curb crying. Apparently she got ditched yet again after they were playing "cops" and she mysteriously was among the first "shot." The good news is that Katie came down to apologize. We had a talk with Lily to explain this deal with her friends.

What it seems to boil down to is Cooper is the ringleader and he doesn't really care that much about what Lily wants or feels. I'm not saying that he needs to think otherwise, but Lily needs to understand that he really is not on her side. We need to find a different boy for her to have her little crush on than Cooper. The thing is that Lily wasn't even trying to be bossy at all. Everything just seemed to happen around her and she had zero input. Some party, eh?

Hopefully she will have learned a little bit from this experience. Mere proximity is not necessarily the best reason for friendship.

Playdate

Lily had a playdate with a friend from kindergarten yesterday. Her mom also goes to Hope, so it's nice to have a connection there. Lily's friend Courtney is the next-to-youngest out of 4 children, so the dynamics there are a bit different.

When I came home from work they were both wearing princess dresses. They had a nice little tea party after the day's picnic at the park. The kids had fun playing by the creek too. Hopefully they don't get bored with the creek any time soon as it is a great activity for them.

I hear a lot of stomping upstairs while I work from home. Last I saw Noah had put on a pair of Lily's plastic "high shoes." The boy loves shoes. I'm not too concerned about him wearing purple princess heels yet. If he still wants to do it at 9 then we may have a problem.

Doing Battle

Had a little skirmish with Lily at bedtime last night. Amanda had some friends over for a movie. Lily wanted to go back downstairs to tell her good night, though she had already done so. I told her that I didn't want her to interrupt them again and she didn't like that. I told her that if she didn't settle down we wouldn't do her Bible reading. When I told her that she turned her back to me in a huff. I then got up to leave, which is when she freaked out.

Several minutes and spankings later I had extricated myself from the room (she was like a monkey on my neck when I hugged her after spanking her). I had to go back when I heard some loud noises as she was banging on her bed to get my attention. After another spanking I explained that she didn't really want me to keep coming back in there. We had some more hugs and another tearful departure, but she did settle down to go to bed.

Later that night the real battle began. I had to do something in the garage and as I turned on the light I saw something scurry. As everyone who lives in the South knows, big brown roaches are pretty common in garages, especially if you have your recycling in there. However, this scurrying creature was 4-5 inches long, gray, and had a tail. I put my sandals on, found the traps, and set them with some peanut butter. As of 0530 today we still have not caught anything. I did leave the garage door open for a few minutes last night in hope that the critter would escape.

I suspect Amanda is going to avoid the garage for a day or two. I'd like to as well, but it's in my job description to rid us of vermin.

Ballgame

I took Lily to the Bulls game on Monday night. I had an unredeemed season ticket and she had a voucher from school. We had a happy surprise in that there were fireworks afterward. This motivated us to stay for the whole game.

We got to see a great game because both starting pitchers were on rehab assignments. The Bulls ended up winning 3-1. I think the highlight of the game for Lily was John Jaso's solo shot to right. They still light up the bull's eyes and get the smoke going out of the nostrils even when the home run does not hit the bull. She really liked that.

Of course, the fireworks were the big hit. At first she plugged her ears, but then she got brave. She was pretty surprised by the two loud ones at the end. The show lasted for two songs -- Celebration by Kool and the Gang and then Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. They played Sweet Caroline because the Bulls were playing the Red Sox. The Boston folks were pretty happy.

What really encourages me is that Lily sat still enough for me to keep score in the program. I didn't do my usual pitch-by-pitch, which felt a little strange. She is very intrigued by keeping score and wants to do it herself next time. I'm excited to show her how.