Swimming with the Dolphins

Both the kids are swimming with Joe Flaherty's Dolphins at our community pool this year.

Nick is doing small group lessons. He's doing great with his kicking, floating, and bubble-blowing. Yes, he's still reluctant to put his face in -- even with the goggles. He did it at each of his first two lessons. At the third he flat out refused saying he didn't want to do it with the other two kids there (yes, the first two lessons were coincidentally private). At this week's lesson, I motivated Nick with the only thing that seems to work so far ... money. He's funny how he questions all the requirements to earn the reward. Anyway, his face was in the water much, much more this lesson.

After nine practices with the pre-team, Angie was invited to practice with the regular swim team's 8 & under girls next time. Her freestyle (that's crawl to many of you) has improved *so* much.

Jim and I are proud of our dolphins!

Kids' Cooking Class

On the first warm, sunny afternoon in ages, I forced the kids indoors to attend the free 'Kids Cooking Class' at Whole Foods.

The group made two green foods in honor of St. Patrick's Day: pesto and edamole (like guacamole, but made from edamame instead of avocado).

I reassured both kids they did not have to taste anything. But, I encouraged them to if they were curious or at least to smell it.

They tore basil for the pesto. Angie got to add salt. Nick poured some olive oil. They each got to add some minced garlic. The kids got to watch it all go through the food processor.

Both kids 'declined' to try the edamole (which was absolutely DELICIOUS -- can't wait for the recipe!). Nick declined, but smelled the penne which was tossed with the pesto. Angie decided to try the pasta. After her first bite, she took my fork away (so I couldn't eat any more) and she asked for a second plate! She rated pesto as her third favorite food after ravioli and tortellini!

Both kids whined about the BORING class and complained about the misbehaved 8 year-old we had the misfortune to sit next to.

We'll see what they say when the class rolls around again next month. I'd like to take them again. Maybe I'll bribe them with dinner afterwards -- they love picking their dinner at the store and eating right there at the tables.

SERT Patrol

Tomorrow morning is the first meeting of the SERT Patrol! Angie applied and was selected to be her class' representative!

I forget what SERT stands for ... School Eco Responsibility Team ... or something like that. Each class has a rep (I think) and the reps have additional responsibilities, like making sure the lights and computer are turned off at night. I'm sure she'll be more diligent about it at school than she is at home.

We're proud of Angie. First, she was chosen by her homeroom teacher to apply. It was a written application and she had to respond to three questions. Yes, I steered her responses a bit. Mostly, I slowed her down to talk about the questions and think about her answers before putting pencil to paper.

From there, the applications went to the sponsoring staff member, a third grade teacher. And, she invited Angie to join. Tomorrow, she'll find out more about what she's going to do.

I'm excited and hope that she enjoys the added responsibility and that it makes school more interesting for her. She'll also have an opportunity to encourage her classmates to recycle responsibly. I hope she can do that without being too bossy!

The Dance Recital that Wasn't

I'm so sad for Angie. Her dance recital was canceled at the last minute tonight ... for the SECOND time. AND, the rescheduled date is a day she can't make. She is SO disappointed.

The original date was just before Xmas. She was going to do the recital and then quit dance. The dance class ends late and she's tired for two days afterwards. It's just too much. Anyway, that date was canceled due to the snow.

The show was rescheduled for the end of January. So, we stuck out the dance lessons for one more month. The show was to be tonight. Jim's out of town, so I borrowed a friend's video camera. We were excited about the show. Angie felt ready. We talked about what to do if you mess up while performing.

THREE HOURS before the show, the dance studio called to say a pipe had burst at the recital place. They were working out another date.

We went to the lesson as usual. Angie complained before the lesson how she never had time to play as I fed her snack, prepped dinner, and rushed her into her leotard.

No formal announcement was made, but I saw a flyer on the table that said the re-rescheduled date would be in April. My heart sank. I knew the answer had to be "no, I'm sorry, we're done" and I knew Angie would be devastated.

Sure enough. The whole way home, she insisted that she was going to stay until the recital ... and not in the nicest tone of voice.

At home, I fed her more dinner and read a book. By the time I tucked her in she was all "I love you, Mommy" again. But, I'm sure I haven't heard the last about dance and the recital.

New Year

Well, the New Year has slipped by without my picking a new theme for the blog. Hmm. Guess I didn't think about it since I haven't been blogging in awhile. Life just got busy.

Anyway, I have a couple of posts I've been drafting in my head. I hope to type them out before I forget.

So, let's kick off 2010!

Lunchtime Success!

Angie's first experience with buying lunch went fine! She lined up with a friend who chose the same entree. Her only complaint was that they didn't give her enough mac-n-cheese. Then again, she said she didn't get a chance to try the side dishes she picked out.

After picking Nick up at preschool, he and I swung by the cafeteria to see how it all went. We arrived as they were cleaning up. Angie didn't seem surprised to see me in the least. She told me lunch went fine. I told her I was proud of her for trying something new and I slipped her and her friend Keira each a Hershey's kiss.

Jim and I found we liked not having to pack a lunch the night before and washing a lunch box after school. We might encourage buying lunch more often! :-)

School Lunch

Tomorrow, Angie plans to buy school lunch for the first time ever.

When the menus came home, she chose this date because she likes both the entree choices. Sometimes, they change one of the choices. This way, she figures, if they change her first choice, she'll be equally happy with the second.

She's also identified three friends in class who frequently buy their lunch. She plans to line up with one of them, so she can ask for help if she doesn't know just what to do.

When it comes time to check out, they use a PIN (money is collected and goes to the office in the morning). We talked about how to remember your number, but Angie brushed me off because, "the number is on the card that shows what meal you chose, Mom."

I'm proud of her for being ready to try. Hope it all goes well!

Moratorium Lifted

Today ended the week of "No New Things". Both kids are excited.

Nick thinks we're going to the toy store tomorrow. When I say we aren't, he just doesn't understand. He gets that he's allowed to have new stuff and he just doesn't see any reason to delay!

Angie has been anticipating this day for some time. Before I lowered the boom, we'd been talking about her Halloween costume. She was distraught when she realized she'd have to wait a week to go shopping and has been worried about them not having her size, etc. [As an aside, I checked while at the store (by myself for another reason) and the outfit she's been eying is out of stock. Bummer.]

I don't call her "Irrepressible Angie" for nothing. After running up against the obstacle of me saying "no", she took another tack. A few days ago, I noticed a new entry in my Google calendar, "get angie's halloween costme[sic]" - scheduled immediately after the week was up. She even filled in the location from the newspaper ad she'd seen. And, for good measure, she set it up as a repeating task ... annually through 2014.

Nothing New Around Here!

I've had it. Lately, the kids have come to expect something new daily, whine when they don't get it, show little gratitude when they do get something, and forget all about the new-gotten goodies the next day. It's making me sick.

We are fortunate enough to be able spoil the kids. (And by "we" I mean everyone who loves them, not just me and Jim). But, I swear they get something new at least half the days of the week -- maybe 5 of 7. Sometimes it's a trinket from school, favors from an event we went to, a gift from family. It's become so commonplace, the kids expect it. The "things" get to me the most. Most of them are brought home and left lying around on the floor. Seems like everywhere we go there's some sort of "souvenir" that I end up picking up.

Tonight was the straw that broke the camel's back ...

Ever since we went to the book fair (and ice cream social) at the school last night, Nick's been wanting to go to the toy store (there weren't enough toys at the book fair for his taste and he didn't like the book I bought him).

Today, at his sports class, they played football. We don't have one at home he can use the way they do in class, so I wanted to get him one. (Yes, I recognize that I'm an enabler here, but you should just SEE the way he LOVES playing sports with Daddy.) There's no way I should've gone to the toy store with the way Nick was carrying on about it ... BUT we had time to kill while Angie was at dance and the toy store is right down the street, and when else was I going to get over there with Jim being out of town, ... AND we went.

We collected Angie from class and as we were all climbing in the car, she noticed the ball. She started in with ... did we get anything for her? where's her new thing?

Was she SERIOUS??? I reminded her, "What about the October tuition for dance classes we just paid for?" That didn't count she explained, she'd been to dance before so it wasn't new. Of course she wouldn't get/care that her tuition would have bought TEN balls, but, aaarrrgghhh!

In a fit of indignation, I threw out the following at both kids this evening.

"That's it! There will be nothing new for either of you for an entire week!"

Who's In Charge?

It surprised me when I realized that this whole conversation with Nick started with playing dinosaurs. He decided the biggest dinosaur was the daddy and second biggest was the mommy. The others were the kids. Things went downhill from there.

He had trouble deciding who was the eldest sibling because one was longer while the other was taller. I pointed out that age and size didn't always go hand-in-hand. He seemed surprised. Yeah, someday you'll probably be bigger than me, I said.

Well, he liked that a whole lot. He said when he got bigger he was going to make the rules.

Not so fast, Son. I pointed out that I would still be the mommy and it'd still be my house so it'd still be my rules.

Well, he decided he'd move out and get his own house so he could make his own rules.

I agreed that when he got old enough he could do that, but that I'd really miss him. "Where do you think you'll move to?" I asked.

"Mexico." he answered without much hesitation.

"Wow, that's far," I commented.

"I'll send you lots of postcards, Mommy," he reassured me.

I realized we've been having lots of conversations about rules and authority lately. This isn't the first time he's talked about wanting to make rules. Next time, I'll have to ask which rules he likes, doesn't like, and which ones he thinks we should have. That might prove interesting.

Into the Abyss

We were all sitting around and either Jim or I used the word 'abyss'.

"What's an 'abyss'?" Angie wanted to know.

I said it was a deep, dark place, and when things fell in you might never get them back.

Right on cue, Nick asked, "Like your purse, Mommy?"