The First Swim Class

Bright and early this morning, Melinda and Jacob started their very first swim class. Level 1, Water Exploration. Skills they work on include blowing bubbles, bobbing in the water, getting comfortable with getting in and out unassisted, dunking their heads underwater, and eventually floating front and back with assistance. Melinda tells me that her teacher said that she will be moving to Level 2... but nobody said anything to me, so I'm not sure if they meant right away, or as soon as this 6-week session is complete. I'm sure she'd have to be put in a different time slot to get Level 2 instruction, at least.

Anyway, I got to sit and watch them through a one-way mirror while they were with their teacher. It was a group lesson, but there was only one other girl in their group along with Jacob and Melinda. Right off the bat, Melinda and Jacob both had trouble sitting and waiting for instructions - they both wanted to run off and do their own thing. I watched for about 10 minutes, while they did "Simon Says" in the water, with blowing bubbles, chin in the water, cheek in the water, etc. But then I had to run home, because I had forgotten the towels. And since it was a brisk 34 degrees this morning, that was not something I wanted them to do without. It's an indoor pool, but the shock of going back outside would not be fun if they were wet. Also, I tried to take some pictures, but I couldn't use the flash because of the one-way mirror, and without the flash there was too much movement and you couldn't see anything for the blur.

Here is a quick question & answer I did with them when we got home. Jacob, poor little guy, had some trouble during the lesson. They were holding onto the wall and walking towards the deeper side, when he let go of the wall and kept on going. Within a couple steps, he was in too deep. The instructor was helping the other little girl there, and Jacob was just outside her peripheral vision. I, quite honestly, got VERY panicked as his head went under the water,and he started flailing. It was just deep enough that he couldn't quite get his face back up. It probably lasted a total of 4 seconds - but when you remember that this a little guy who gets absolutely traumatized by water getting on his face in a bath.... well, then you realize that this was probably terrifying to him. The teacher saw him and snatched him up, and sat him up on the wall. He laid down on his tummy right there on the poolside, and wasn't crying, at least... but he had a shocked look on his face. After that, they worked on "jumping" into the pool from a sitting position on the wall, and he did okay with that. He continued participating. But listen to his answers here in the Q&A and you'll see that he isn't thrilled about the idea of more classes. His little scare sort of colored all his answers... he really was fairly excited this morning before class actually started. On the other hand, I was quite pleased with how Melinda did. While not terrified of water in her face, she certainly hates it. Always demands a towel if her eyes get wet. But even though I noticed she was uncomfortable with her face wet, she was very eager to try everything the instructor asked her to do, and didn't panic or get upset when she would go completely underwater.... just kept her eyes squeezed tightly closed, was all!

My questions are in red, Melinda's and Jacob's answers are noted with their name.

Before you went to swim class, how did you feel about it?

Melinda: Happy, because it sounded really fun.
Jacob: Scared.

When you saw the pool for the first time, what did you think?

Melinda: I guess I liked it. (She ran around a lot, I thought she was excited. She tells me she was just playing airplane.)
Jacob: It's not good.

What did you think about your teacher?

Melinda: Fun!
Jacob: Not good to me.

What was your favorite part of swim class?

Melinda: Going under the water.

What did you do under the water?

Melinda: One of the parts when I went under the water, I opened my eyes a teeny bit, it didn't look fun under the water... I didn't see it very much. I didn't want my eyes opened all the way.

What was your favorite part of swim class?

Jacob: Not good. The part I like is the lollipop part when we were all done.

What did you like while you were IN the water?

Jacob: Jumping into my teacher's arms.

Melinda's 2 cents: I didn't have to jump into the teacher's arms. She just caught my hands and my face went under water.

What new thing did you learn at swim class today?

Melinda: I pretty much know how to do everything.

Do you know how to hold your breath?

Melinda: Yes, when I went under.

What new thing did you learn at swim class today?

Jacob: How to swim.

How did you swim?

Jacob: Like a duck.

How do ducks swim?

Jacob: They swim with the yellow colors.

Tell me what was scary about swim class.

Jacob: We go into the swimming pool.

What happened in the swimming pool?

Jacob: I don't know.

What happened when you were walking down the wall?

Jacob: I fell in and that was scary.

Why was it scary?

Jacob: That was scary. Falling down the wall.

Were you stuck under water?

Jacob: Mmm-hmm. And I couldn't get up.

And how did that make you feel?

Jacob: Sad and scared.
Do you want to do swimming class again?
Jacob: Uh-uh.

Why not?

Jacob: I don't like it.

Was there anything you didn't like at swim class?

Melinda: Uh-uh. No. Nothing.

Do you want to do swim class next week?

Melinda: Yes, yes, yes!!

What are you excited about learning next time?

Melinda: Swimming under water.

Do you think you will be good at it?

Melinda: Yes, yes, yes!

Anything else you want to tell me about swim class?

Melinda: Mmm, maybe after the next class.

P.S., regarding some comments I've gotten:
As for witnessing it, I've been processing panic emotions all morning/afternoon. Feels eerily similar to all the bad dreams I've had of Jacob dying while I was completely powerless. My body was just starting to get to the point that I was thinking I should run to the door and scream to get the instructor's attention when she turned and saw him. Took a while for my heart to slow down. I may very well feel as scared as he does. I also insisted that he take a nap today to help recover from the scary morning. He was already seeming clingier and more easily upset than normal, by noon. And that's saying a lot, for Jacob these days.

But, I was impressed that despite the scare, he continued to participate and didn't have a meltdown. He was more hesitant to get his face anywhere near the water, but he didn't stay OUT of the water or cry at all. We'll see how he is next week. I'll keep trying to talk to him and work through it with him. If nothing else, I hope that maybe it helps him understand why learning how to swim is so important, so that sort of thing doesn't happen again.
Here's to hoping he'll not be too scared for next week. Nothing like starting off swim lessons for the very first time with a frightening event. :-\

Kids These Days

Prepare to be overwhelmed by newness.  The kids have been busy!!

Melinda drew a fun picture the other day.  It seems to me that she has a lot of good imagination, and a fairly decent drawing ability, but it's harder and harder to encourage her to sit down long enough to draw anything anymore.  But here's what she came up with: Her and a friend sliding down a really fun slide (it's on the back of a math paper, so excuse the other odd things that scanned through - I toned them down as best as I could):

 

In just a couple weeks, Melinda has gone from being completely unable to hula hoop, to becoming a quick expert.  I'm amazed at how quickly she's picked it up!!

We also bought a jump rope a few days ago.  Again, something she was completely unable to do when we brought it home.  But with a little time and determination, she again figured it out all on her own.  She's up to doing 4 jumps in a row! 

I don't really have any fun pictures of Jacob, but he's gotten extremely comfortable with computers in the past couple weeks.  A month or so ago, he was completely unable to get a handle on using the computer mouse.  Now he clicks everything, much to our dislike/  Because, yeah - do you really want a 3 year old helping himself to anything and everything on your computer?  He can your change task bar's size, location and type faster than you can even realize that he's standing in front of your computer, messing with things!  The kids are allowed to play on Jesse's computer, which is mainly just for internet usage and games, so there's nothing sensitive there.  But Jesse is frequently annoyed these days, trying to figure out how to undo what Jacob has rearranged.  And the rule is that he's not allowed to even touch my computer, but that doesn't keep him from trying.  He's particularly fond of clicking the pause button when I have music playing.  Over and over and over.

Jacob's also learned how to use the potty "Daddy's way".  Standing up.  Oh, the messes...  He hasn't quite mastered how to get that aim right at the very beginning yet, and we frequently end up with wet potties, wet socks, wet shirts....  but he's bound and determined to keep right on standing up for potty time.  A shame, too - he was so comfortable just straddling the toilet, when even Melinda never was, and still isn't.  She's still nervous without a toddler-sized potty seat.  But Jacob just keeps on trying new things.

With summer coming up, and both Melinda and Jacob still being fairly uncomfortable with water, I finally bit the bullet/got on the ball/admitted reality - whatever you want to call it - and signed them both up for swim lessons.  They'll start in Level 1, geared toward the kids who still don't put their face in water (yup, that's them!), and have half-hour lessons just down the street every Wednesday for 6 weeks.  Melinda's super excited that I'm finally getting her lessons, after probably a good year of talking about it, but she's still doubtful about the part where she's going to have to put her face in water.  Hopefully the instructors are as good as I've heard they are!  Plus, they don't chlorinate the pools, so hopefully it will be easy on their eyes.  From their website:

If you notice a slight salt taste in our pools it is because they are state-of-the-art! We brought these systems in from Australia. We add salt to the pool, raising the salinity to 4500 ppm (the human tear is 8000 ppm). Then we run the salt water through a low voltage electrical charge in the backroom that converts the salt (NaCl) water into natural chlorine. We never have to add harsh chemicals to these pools.

Alex.  Now, Alex is constantly doing something new!!  Can you believe the little guy turns one year old on April 1st?!  Just a couple weeks away!  (*sniff, sob, sniff*)
He's really mastered climbing on our chairs now.  One of his favorite pastimes is climbing up the front room chair, climbing over to the couch, sliding down feet first off the couch, and starting the whole rotation over.  He'll do it for a good half hour before he gets bored!  He loves to climb up onto the computer chairs and see what treasures he can find up on the desks.  And last, but not least, he figured out the dining room chairs.  For a couple days, we got away with just making sure the chairs were pushed in after we were done using them.  Now, though, if he's feeling really determined, he will pull the chair out, and then climb up on top.  And of course, the table is easy pickin's after that.  And what toddler in his right mind wouldn't go ahead and climb up on top of the table if he already got as far as the top of the chair?  So, nothing is safe anymore.  What an adventure...

 A couple other fun, random things that Alex has done:  He really likes to "play" the drums from Guitar Hero:

Alex also likes to take the stairs out of Melinda's dollhouse, and then crawl right on into the bottom floor.  Like he's Clifford the Big Red Dog, or something.  ;)

 

You think we're done yet?  Not a chance!  Alex also has started to figure out the fun little pop-up toy that seems to be a standard in every home, and has certainly been in ours since the early days of Melinda:

And, being such a busy boy, it's always nice to crash on a cuddly Daddy at the end of the day:

 

Alex has been mimicking for a long while now... but we just hit a pretty major first.  We've had a letter Z and letter Z words hanging up on the wall for a couple weeks now, and Jacob and Melinda like to point at them and name them.  The other night, I took Alex near the wall, and he started pointing at the pictuers, too.  So I told him the names of each one.  Pretty soon, he was saying the "zzzzzz" sound right along with me, and clearly proud of himself.  The next night, which was last night, we did it again, and he said "zzzzz" even better than before.  And when we went and sat back down with daddy, we pointed to me, saying "Mama".  Pointed to Jesse, saying "Dada".  Pointed to Alex, saying "Alex".  He paid very close attention, clearly interested in this new thing.  We repeated it a few times.  Then, he pointed just like we had been doing, right on Jesse's chest, and very clearly said "dada"!!!  Of course, then he tried to call me "dada", but didn't sound as sure about it.  But I think we can call that his first word, can't we?  (And, for the record, he doesn't really say "mmm" sounds yet, so I don't think "mama" will happen anytime soon.)

This next thing is not so much completely kid-specific, but I still wanted to include it.  We had a few friends over for a playdate yesterday.  I had wanted to do a playdate this Tuesday anyway, but when I saw it was also St. Patrick's Day, we (okay, fine: I) decided to make it a little bit fun, too.  We ran to the store and got some green lei's and some shamrocks (which we hung on the walls), and some St. Patrick's Day plates.  We set out every green food we could manage:  Sliced green apples, cut up broccoli, celery, cucumbers, pickles, green grapes... I would have done sugar snap peas, too, but they looked awful and wilted at the store.  I also made little "rainbows on a stick":

 

And the fun part: Green juice.  I can't remember clearly whether this is something I found a couple years ago on the internet, or if maybe Jesse's mom, Nedra, gave the idea to me.  But basically, it's spinach and apple juice.  Put enough apple juice into the blender to provide liquid, add a whole bag of baby spinach, and blend it all together.  Then, put it all through a strainer, leaving out the really thick bits of spinach, add in the rest of the apple juice, and you're left with a very green apple juice with a surprisingly enjoyable and refreshing spinach flavor.  We gave this to Melinda to drink when she'd get constipated.  But it seemed like it would be fun to enjoy on St. Patrick's Day, too, so I added it to the menu for our playgroup.  :)

 

 

And the playgroup was really fun.  A nice full house, with a total of 9 kids and 4 of us adults.  All those yummy fruits and vegetables were plowed right through.  And when the veggies were gone, Melinda wanted more and requested some carrots and dip.  Of course, she was also given the option of extra bug-shaped graham crackers that our friend brought along.  Can you believe she declined that in favor of the carrots?  :)  Jacob, in the meantime, was working hard to remind me how hard 3-year-olds are.  I guess I had forgotten.  But when he went from perfectly fine to throwing a big ol' giant fit over bike-sharing issues, I exclaimed in exasperation, "Are all three-year-olds like this?!?  Because I seriously can't remember!"  And, in unison, all my friends piped in with a hearty "YES!"  Sigh.  I guess that means I get to do this all over again in a couple years with Alex.  Ugh.

We continued our green fun for dinner:  We had a soup that included green onions and spinach, followed by a leek/spinach/broccoli quiche.  Which was very yummy, by the way.  Although now I'm starting to wonder if maybe the kids wouldn't have enjoyed some corned beef and cabbage.... oh well.  The all-green-all-day thing was fun, too.  :)

Building My Family

Sunday night, I lay in the dark, snuggling with Jacob and Melinda, singing bedtime songs to them. I had just finished singing a new song we've been learning in Primary, called "My Eternal Family". I sang it through twice, because I needed the practice with the lyrics. After I finished, Melinda asked, "Mommy, what's an eternal family?" I answered, "It means a family that is together forever. Eternal means that something doesn't ever stop. So an eternal family is a family that stays together, always, without any end - even after we die. Isn't it wonderful that we can be together forever?!" A noncommittal, empty pause, and so I filled in the space: "Well, I'm so glad we can be together forever. I love you guys so so much. Did you know that I love you so so much?" Melinda answers, kind of squirming around, like she's looking for the right thing to say, "Ummm, hmmm, well, I thought you only loved us a medium amount."

Oh. Oh.

I quickly corrected her and told them both that they were the best things that ever happened to me, and I really do love them so much - but sometimes I have a hard time being a good mom, and when I get frustrated, I'm unfortunately not so good at showing them how much I love them. I hugged them both tightly and again told them how much I loved them, and how glad I am that we can be together forever, because I would never want to be without them.... all the while, tears are falling down my upturned face, wetting my cheeks, dripping into my ears. How can I express how much they mean to me?? How can I help them understand?

I sung a few more songs, tucked them into bed, and didn't dwell too much longer on our short conversation: Once I got out to the front room, I also had Alex to take care of, because Jesse was not successful at getting him to sleep. And once he did finally go to sleep, he woke up crying loudly only about 30 minutes later. Side note: He struggled with the sleeping all day on Sunday, screeching a loud high-pitched noise at random intervals, which seemed to me like a stubborn refusal to fall asleep, more than anything else. And do you know how loudly an almost-one-year-old baby can screech when he wants to? Well, let's just say it's loud enough to both make your ears ring, and bounce screeching echoes off of the walls of your fully-carpeted, fully-furnished home. Yay? Anyway, so needless to say I was losing track of my earlier thoughts pertaining to eternal families, and I was getting tired and frustrated, having no real quiet time to enjoy to myself. So when Jesse got on my nerves a little bit later, I got rude and snippy with him. And the rest of the evening was officially ruined, at that point, as he was now reacting to me similarly, and both of us were too grumpy to suck it up and make things better.

After Alex was finally asleep for good, and I set him down, I heaved a big sigh and realized I really needed to apologize to Jesse. I worked up some humility and sincerity, and expressed my regret to him. My apology went smoothly, was accepted easily, and the remaining few minutes of the evening were now fine and stress-free. Except for when I couldn't fall asleep until after 1:30am. As I lay there in bed, being able to think clearly in the quiet (which was laced with snoring, of course), my thoughts wandered, as they should, back to my discussion with the kids at bedtime, and eternal families.

I went over the lyrics in my head:

I am a builder, working each day to build my family.
And I will do the best I can to serve them lovingly.
I am a builder, growing so tall, and learning every day
To speak with kindness in my home, to help at work and play.

My Heavenly Father sent me here, and He knows I can be
Strong and righteous as I build my eternal family.

Simple song, not my favorite in the world, and definitely geared towards children. But it struck me full force in those quiet moments, as I considered the fact that my oldest daughter thought I only loved her a medium amount, and I easily took out my frustrations on my husband that same evening. Am I really doing my best to build my family, working my hardest to always speak with kindness in my home? To serve them lovingly? Am I keeping in mind that my Heavenly Father gave this work of motherhood to me, and that He knows I'm capable of finding the strength within myself to build up my family with love?

Why is it that we are so often most rude, condescending, short-tempered and unforgiving with our families, the people we love most, who are most important to us? This is a frequently covered topic, it seems... We should treat our families even better than we treat our friends, I know this. I think we all know this. And I know I'm always on my very best behavior when I'm talking with my friends in even the briefest encounters. I need my friends, and I don't want to ruin my relationship by being too thoughtless with my words, or by coming off even the least bit rude. I don't want to do anything to offend them or drive them away. So why am I so often the opposite when it comes to my family, the people who matter the most to me, who are completely irreplaceable and the center of my world? Is it just because I know they can't just up and stop seeing me if they don't like me? Is it Satan just trying to tear apart the most fundamental and important unit of mankind? Or is it because I take their presence for granted?

I couldn't answer any of my own questions before I finally drifted off to sleep, at least not to my satisfaction. But it did give me a lot to think about, and again reminded me of how much I want to improve my family relationships, to become more Christ-like in my love with them, more perfect in my dealings with them. It's an ongoing process, and even if the reminders hurt and make me sad, I'm grateful for them, so that I can reevaluate myself, and renew my resolve to work harder. To build my eternal family.

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