Parent Improvement

 Lately, Simon has been making lists of ways we need to improve as parents. This was what he wrote on our drive from North Carolina to Ohio.

Translation:

1. Don't count to 3 when I will do something.

2. Don't get us in trouble for no reason.

Third Swim Meet

 The third swim meet of the season was a virtual meet. It was far less exciting than a real meet, but much shorter which made us happy. They just swim events in their own pool and them compare times later.

Here are a few random shots from the meet. Since our team is so small, they combined a lot of events to make it go quicker.

The team doing warm ups.

I'm proud to carry on the family tradition of being stroke and turn judge. Zac is a timer.

Sometimes Alice and Simon would even swim at the same time.

Simon was pretty excited about the popsicles afterwards!

Neighborhood Friends

 I love that our kids have some friends in the neighborhood to play with. Simon and Keaton spend almost every weekday fishing at the pond. Keaton's mom just packs him a lunch and drops him off for the day. Keaton is 3 years older than Simon, but they bonded over their total fishing obsession.

Alice and Lily became friends about 2 years ago at the pool one day. They both did "Girls on the Run" before the pandemic ruined everything. They're on swimteam together this summer. Often times Lily will stay after practice to play for a while at the pool with Alice and then I'll just drop her off when they're done. They get moody with each other sometimes, but get along pretty well for the most part.

Hummingbird Hawk Moth

 

Our little naturalists.

Simon: It's a hummingbird hawk moth. I learned that from Puffin Rock.

Alice: Probiscus.

Simon: It's tail looks like a crawdab.

Simon's Feasts with Flair

 Simon is still fixing most of his own snacks and lunches these days. What I like is the presentation and artistry that he puts into it.

I used to make patterns with the fruit sometimes and Simon always really appreciated it. Now he's doing it for his own snacks.

June Fish

 

Second Swim Meet

 Zac and I celebrated our 19 years of marriage by taking the kids to their second swim meet. They did well, as in they swam their events. Alice had a problem with her 25 free because she got it in her head that she was in heat 2, even although she was heat 1, so she missed her event, although she did swim it in the next heat. Alice won first place for her 25 backstroke. I DQd her for breaststroke because she had a flutter kick. She did butterfly for the first time (since she missed her heat for free, Angel gave her butterfly as a punishment) but she got disqualified by the other stroke and turn judge. She was in the far lane so I couldn't see well enough to know what she did wrong, but I suspect it was her kick. Once she learns to do the strokes properly I think things will get better. It's all about learning this year.

Simon is still learning how to swim, but he was pretty happy to get some participation ribbons at this meet. And his relay got first place, so that was fun. All in all, things are going well with the great swim team experiment.

The kids get their ribbons at the practice following the meet, so here's Alice with her first 1st Place ribbon in 25 backstroke. She takes after me, as being double jointed seems to help in backstroke.

Alice the Artist

 

Alice got a bunch of art supplies for her birthday, and since she's limited to a mere 4 hours of computer gaming time per day, she has to entertain herself with other endeavors such art and reading. Today she painted two canvases with dragons.

Falls Lake Camping

 We had our annual trip to Falls Lake for camping this weekend. We were joined by Andrea with her two boys, Robyn with her three boys, Jess + Rosa and Anna, and Lindsey, Brent, Grayson and Brie came down from Virginia, bringing along Grayson's friend, Fahim. So we had a good group. The weather was hot and not rainy for the first time in a couple of years. It did rain Sunday morning when we were packing up though. 

I didn't take many pictures, but the kids had a great time playing in the lake while the grownups sat around visiting or cooking. It seems like we were hardly ever all in one place at the same time, but the campground took on a feel like what I imagine some neighborhoods were like in the olden days: Where they kids ran around and there were always enough grownups sitting around on porches to keep an eye on everyone.

Simon and Brie hit it off and they played together a lot. The older kids played pretty roughly in the water--lots of dunking and splashing. I got really mad at Alice because she went/snuck off to Anna's tent to play on Jess's phone with her a few times. I view camping as a sacred screen-free detox time, so I was super mad. I had several difficult moments with Alice on the trip, trying to get her to eat enough when she was hungry and mean. But overall, it was a pleasant weekend and I will try to focus on the good parts in my memories.

Enter Keaton who likes fishing

 Keaton seemed destined to join our family. He first came to our attention when Alice mentioned, nonchalantly, that she would be meeting a boy from the bus at the street corner at 3pm on a Sunday. There were a couple of other planned meetings like that but they all fell through. She did manage to invite him to her birthday party, but she never gave him an invitation, so she texted him and at the last minute he told his mom about the party and she texted me and we sorted it all out and she brought him over. 

Then, Alice got in touch with him later and invited him over for a play date. I said that was fine as long as they stayed outside. So they went fishing, and invited Calvin too.

Alice got bored after a while, and came in. But another friendship was formed: Simon and Keaton are both completely obsessed with fishing.

[Update from a week later: Keaton came over every weekday to go fishing with Simon, staying most of the day.]

Here is Simon just waiting and looking at the clock until Keaton arrives to go fishing. He has such weird obsessive behaviors.

First Swim Meet

 On Tuesday we had our first real swim meet at Brentwinds Country Club. Their team was huge and pretty good. The meet lasted over three hours, and that's even with them only doing the first heats of breaststroke and butterfly once they realized how slow the meet was going. I had no idea how our kids would do. I wasn't worried about them swimming fast or placing or anything, I just wanted them to have a good attitude and swim their events. It all went pretty well, actually. Alice ended up subbing for another swimmer who didn't show up, so Alice swam an older relay and even a 50 free. I was working as stroke and turn judge the whole time, so I couldn't really cheer them on or talk to them after each race, but both kids seemed happy and fine. Despite having done no practices, Simon swam his events. He's good at watching what the other kids are doing and following along. Now he just needs to learn how to swim properly!

Family selfie before the meet. You can't really see it but we're all wearing our swim team shirts.

Alice and her good friend Lily.

Simon's 25 freestyle. He's in lane 2 (lane 1 is farthest from view).

Alice doing the 50 free in the 11-12 age group (subbing for an absent swimmer). She's in lane 4.

Alice doing the first leg of the 100 free relay. She's in lane 2.

Mock Swim Meet

 We have our first swim meet of the season tomorrow, so today instead of a normal practice they had a mock-meet so the kids (especially the swimmers new to the team) could get the hang of it. Up until today, we've been going to every practice, but because the water was so cold, Simon sometimes wouldn't get in, and even if he did, he would just play around in the shallow end. He's an extremely stubborn kid, so I figured he'd come around the swim team when he was good and ready. I wasn't sure what he would do for the mock meet, but it turns out he swam his events just like they told him to. As Zac said, he just kind of shifted into obedient school mode and did what he was told.

Coach Robert and TSA Rep Angel get the kids ready for the mock meet. We're a small scrappy team.

First race: Simon's freestyle

Alice's freestyle

Simon attempts backstroke

I wanted to document these first races to hopefully show progress as the season goes on.

Simon's other activities

Although Simon is still completely fixated on fishing, he does occasionally do other things. 

 He still likes to build forts in the basement. He calls them "grottos" now after Puffin Rock, his favorite show that he also watches obsessively.

He loves to pick wild fruits such as blackberries. He got all dressed in long sleeves and long pants to be better protected from the prickers.

He got a whole container of blackberries, ate a bowl full, then laid on the couch with a stomachache for an hour. He hasn't been very interested in blackberries ever since.

He's keeping a close eye on the ripening tomatoes in the garden.

He also evidently made a lot of plans for the month of June!

Alice's 10th Birthday

 It's so hard to believe my firstborn, the child that made me a mother, is today a decade old. Ten years.

After a great breakfast and opening the presents, the quiche for lunch, I took the kids to the pool all afternoon. Alice had a blast--the pool was crowded and she found many friends to play with. Meanwhile, back at home Zac was making the cake and grilled chicken thighs for supper. The design was based on a picture Alice drew of a dragon head.

Alice's Birthday Party

 I didn't want to have a birthday party for Alice because they are not my sort of thing, but we were talking about what she wanted to do for her birthday one day, and through the discussion we ended up planning her party. We decided to have it at our fire pit (she wanted the pool, but that's too complicated). So I made this invitation and she gave them to about 15 friends at school. But every day she'd come home asking me to print off another one or two because she thought of somebody else to invite. I was starting to get worried we'd have 20 kids that I'd never met before running around the backyard. It turns out about a dozen RSVPed yes, so that seemed like a good amount of friends.

On the morning of the party, we had swim practice like normal and I let her stay afterwards for a while to play with Riley and Lily.

Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for the party. A little before 5:00 the friends started arriving. They were all super excited once they saw our backyard, with the pond, swings, hammock, and fire pit,  it is pretty impressive these days. We didn't plan games or anything, figuring the kids would just hang out and cook hot dogs. It turns out, they were very interested in the s'mores and fruit salad, but not much of the rest of the food. We also had snacks, corn on the cob, and even chicken wings. They did a pretty good job entertaining themselves and we just stood around and tended to the food and fire.