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Thursday, July 3, 2008

Six weeks down, six to go


So today marks six weeks since the boys have been out of school ... not that I'm counting. Our summer vacation is actually slipping by at a comfortable clip. I concede that some days have been longer than others, being confined to the air-conditioned house with energy-riddled kids who unleash their zest by playing basketball with a tiny bedroom hoop and running like crazy throughout the house playing hide and seek, tag, or "how much harm can I do to my brother."

And then arguments abound about whether to watch Cars, Little Mermaid, How It's Made, or professional soccer on the big TV. Thank goodness for our pool. Whenever it feels like the energy mounting in the house is going to decombust, I send it (in the form of my four little children and myself) out to the pool. Nothing like splashing around in 90-degree water to calm the kids.


Meanwhile, in other summer family news:
  • Allie and Zach are back at swimming lessons. Zach still frets about getting his face wet on the ride over, but always follows through and does it for the class. He still practically strangles the teacher when he has to do his back float, but at least he's not crying and screaming like he was earlier this summer. Allie, on the other hand, is a little fish and eager to please. She prides herself on managing a couple strokes and going under water for a good 10 seconds. She's the one sitting there with a huge smile on her face.
  • Nick is taking swimming lessons, too. In our pool he typically swims under water to get around. One day I asked him to freestyle swim the length of our tiny pool and he had a hard time, still not really grasping the whole "breathe to the side" concept. So when his first lesson rolled around on Monday and the teacher asked the kids to swim the length of the HUGE community center pool, I was worried. "Oh no," I told Brett. "They're going to have to scoop him up out of the water and demote him to a lower-level class." But that didn't happen. Instead, my mouth dropped open as I watched Nicky swim -- really swim with arms, breathing and all -- the whole length of the pool. Twice! I was so impressed and he was so proud of himself. He kept slyly peeking up at us to see if we were looking. Of course, we were.
  • In other Nicky news ... over the past few weeks he's been sleepwalking. We went through night terrors with Blake when he was 6 or 7, but Nick's is normal, walking-around sleepwalking. Several times he's come walking into our room and then flipping on the bathroom light. At first I thought he was just going to the bathroom. But he would turn on the light without using the bathroom. One time he turned on the light in the laundry room and opened the door out to the garage. Last night at around 11, Brett and I heard a strange sound. We checked the hallway, but found nothing. Later he came running in our room, then running back into his room. But in the morning as I went to turn the computer on, I found his bedsheet on the floor of the playroom, but he was soundly in his bed. It's a bit unsettling watching him walk around and waking up wondering if you woke up because you heard him roaming around -- kind of like watching the dead people roam around in Sixth Sense. So now I'm just hoping he never hurts himself during one of his nighttime wanderings.
Enough for now ... trying to keep these shorter.

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