A swimmer

We officially have a swimmer at our house!!! I took the 3 kids to a friend's neighborhood pool last Thursday...by myself. That is a whole other story, but I am quite proud to say that all 3 children survived without requiring any sort of intervention from a lifeguard. Of course there was no lifeguard. But basically it was me holding the screaming, shaking baby boy...who really had never been in a pool before and so was LESS than thrilled to be in it. He was gripping my neck and shoulders like an orangutan baby. Lily refused to wear any sort of floatation device, since it hindered her ability to bend over when out of the pool. Arghh. So she mostly stood on the step and jumped into my one arm or jumped in from the edge while I held Michael away from the splash. She was very very good about waiting for me. And Andrew took a while to get comfortable in the water, despite the fact that he could touch the ground and still be head and shoulders above the water. Whatev- This was one of those times that it was very very good that I am uber-laid back. Because I'm pretty sure that a normal mother whose instincts are intact would have had about 1,000 heart attacks. Or maybe it is very very bad for my children that I am uber-laid back and risked their lives.

Except that they had a BLAST. Even Michael was giggling by the end (although still with a death grip on my shoulders...searching for that long mama-orangutan hair that he instinctively was wanting a hand hold of). And after 30 minutes of adjusting, Andrew kicked his feet up and SWAM ACROSS THE POOL. I was jumping up and down and hugging him and so so so excited. He was so proud of himself, he did it about a million times. It is so amazing to see your child accomplish something so important...it was like when he read me his first book. I don't care if it isn't that amazing or special in the grand scheme of things. This is MY baby doing it for the first time. Oh! I swelled with pride.



One more story before I go and put Lily to bed. I bought the kids a bag of rocks from Lowes. I know, I know...Mother of the Year. But they LOVE rocks...they always steal them off of people's landscaping and nothing beats going to the creek at the local park and picking up and sorting the rocks. Why not bring this fun to our own backyard? So I made the big $3.99 investment and bought a bag of rocks. Today I dumped about 1/4 of it on the lawn and told them to have at it. They sorted through, rinsed them off, made music with them, taste-tested them (that was only Michael). It kept them quiet and happy for at least 40 minutes...while Jeff and I sat in the shade enjoying the weather and looking at each "cool" rock they brought us to inspect.

But my favorite was when Andrew brought me a gray rock. Most of the rocks are quartzy looking white and orangy-tinged. But this one was gray. He ran over to me and said, "Mom! This looks like a wild rock!" You know...like a rock you'd find in the wild and not at a store. ;)