Which brings me to Julian's new class. He's working on "peanut butter and jelly," which is DACA's way of saying "on their tummy" or "on their back," and having them practice rolling from one to the other. I watched Julian today doing this back-and-forth exercise, and he's getting pretty good at it. He has very different style from Gabriel; he almost looks...well, slippery when he turns over. I think that's a precursor to "agile." He's still not using his arms in this class yet, but from what I saw at Water Babies, he'll have a powerful stroke.
The inconvenience of swim lessons triples when it gets too cold to wear shorts and sandals after class, so I'll probably stop sometime around fall, but I really want as much to sink in as possible right now.
(With some guilt, I notice that I'm far more likely to take them to things that I like, which makes no sense...but hanging around a pool is more natural to me than hanging around a soccer field. Then again, there's a strong safety and fun case for swimming ability, as one of my Mom friends found out recently when her 2nd-grader fell off a dock and was able to rescue himself.)
Still tired and fighting some mild illness, I was exceptionally lazy and unproductive this afternoon, resulting in a rare event: I actually sat on our family-room couch. I never sit on couches anymore. The boys joined me, and we sat and hugged and talked and played for quite a while. I revelled in being surrounded by these two remarkable people, and relished even more how much they loved having me just sit down with them. It's really amazing how horrible our blowout fights can be, but then how warm and affectionate and loving they can be to me later. I'm always surprised by it, like I don't deserve it....but perhaps their demonstrativeness is more for their own sake than for mine -- little kids really want and need to love their mothers and feel secure with them. And I'm more than happy to be there and to return it. I hoped the moment would never end and stretched it out as long as I could.
Dave took the boys to a demolition derby this evening, something I sort-of wanted to do, but thought better of it because of Katrina, and because my back and sitting on hard flat things like bleachers just don't mix anymore. Later, Dave told me that there was a lot of line-waiting, so it was just as well I didn't go. I had a nice time home alone with Katrina, who also seemed to really enjoy the rare one-on-one time with Mom. I hemmed some jeans, and she got a huge kick out of the sewing machine. She played on her own for a long, long time, carpeting the boys' spotless floor with puzzle pieces and Legos. I had insisted the boys pick up their whole room before the derby, and she completely undid that single-handedly.
As I was sewing, one time I heard her call out, "Mommy, pee's bothering me!" I answered the ritual, "OK, go pee then!" She won't accept any help these days and sometimes has a HUGE kniption about so much as opening the bathroom door to check on her, but she still has to make the announcement. After about 10 minutes, the silence concerned me, so I went to find her. Not in any of our four bathrooms. Hmm. Then I spotted her outside, in the West yard, standing butt-nekkid next to a puddle in the dirt. "Mommy, I went pee in the grass like a sheep!" she called, proudly. Only the sheep manages not to plant their rear end in the dirt when it's wet....what a mess. I'm glad she's willing and able to use the great outdoors, but does she have to?
Lucky me...lots of nice moments with my children today.
9/12/09
No comments:
Post a Comment