Swim class

Grace did so great at her final swim class today (as witnessed by Daddy, Gramma and Granddad too) that we've signed her up for ONE more two-week session - the last one they have for the summer so this will REALLY be it.

Even with the early class time (8:30am) Grace loves going to them. Hated it the first week or so; loves them now. The coach that teaches the class is awesome - we're definitely taking swim lessons there again next year.

I'm not becoming a schedule-happy mother, am I? She now will have been in 8 weeks of swim classes that should end just a few days before dance classes begin. And she's only 3. But at least dance classes will only be once a week. The last session of swim classes has us going 5 days a week versus 4. Phew.

Tech stuff

So I'm very proud of myself that I figured out how to put the Textamerica link back up on the webpage all by myself (Jim walked me through it the first time). Though I wasn't able to figure out (1) how to make it open up in a new page like it did before and (2) how to make it open to the main page rather than the latest photo.

Oh well. Just know that if you click through to it and go to the main page there are two little movies Jim shot with my camera on it (apparently those won't show up as the latest picture that pops up on this blog). Funny to watch Alex crawl - I guess he'll learn how to get up on those knees some day. At this rate his big ol' thighs will never go down; he'll just develop great upper body strenghth.

Green

Tonight Grace was eating frozen peas out of the bowl before they went into the microwave.

"Mommy, these taste like green. But they are really green peas."

So now you all know what green tastes like.

Writing

As far as I know, Grace took her first stab at writing today (I don't know if they've tried any letters with her at school or not). I think she did pretty damn good. I just described to her how to write the letter - "The E is one line down and three little lines coming out of it" - and traced with my finger on the paper to demonstrate. She wrote names for the whole family, for Mom and Dad (Susan and Mike, though I had to help her with the "S"), and then proceeded to write the names for all the main characters of Monsters Inc.

Sample is below. She didn't always keep the letters in order for some of the other names, but did pretty good with ours.

Julie and Jim ("Mommy, how do you spell your OTHER name") 

Grace H and Alex. I sometimes wonder if Grace thinks that "Grace H" is actually her name - there's enough other Graces in her class that I add the initial to everything I label.

Those were the days, my friend...

Had the 20th high school reunion this past weekend. It was an absolutely wonderful time. All the planning on this thing finally came together and just about everyone come up to me all weekend talking about how fun it was. Unfortunately a lot of people in our class that you would expect to show up did not. It would have been nice to catch up with them. But that can't be helped - they just missed a really good party.

As in past reunions, it's always amazing to me how much I enjoy talking with people that weren't necessarily my closest friends in high school. The only bad thing about the past weekend (other than the crappy group photo - Kathy's class had the same problem) is that I see my Christmas card list getting bigger when I've been trying to reduce it down the past few years. Also the reunion seemed very much like a wedding reception - I tried to talk to as many people as I could, though I feel like I didn't talk to most of them anywhere near as long as I would have liked.

Things of note: creepy Speedo-wearing people from Mexico trips are still kind of creepy; as I expected it is best to go sans spouse if you know your spouse doesn't want to attend - as a "single" girl you have quite the pick of solo guys to dance with; you will always get cornered by weird former ROTC women when there are about 50 other people in eyesight you'd rather be talking to; Wendy still is great to hang next to for making astute (catty?) observations of others; I wish I'd known Mindy better in high school because she is also really funny; photographers who keep telling you to say "sex" instead of "cheese" for the umpteenth group shot are ANNOYING; I wish I'd known Scott Cross before now because he is a really cool guy; Wade can give a wonderfully touching toast with only a days notice; I wish I'd pulled my camera out much sooner - hopefully I'll get people to send in photos to share.

Probably much more to say, but definitely not interesting to any readers that didn't actually go to high school with me. And at the next one in 5 or 10 years I'll be staying out even later because I won't have a nursing baby to get home to (though this old mom did pretty good hanging until about 12:30am Saturday night).

Kevin, Ronnie, David and James.

Kevin, Blair and Aaron.

Tuttle and Dan.

Julie and old friends (Paul, James and Monty).

My Little Mermaid

What a difference two weeks make. Today was the last day of Grace's second 2-week swim session. Parents are invited to sit in during class to see what has been learned. Two weeks ago at the last swim show Grace cried just about the whole time (mainly because I was in there - it took her about a week and a half to just go to class without crying because I was leaving). This week (week 4 of swimming) was the one that she turned the corner on. Now she loves swim class. And she was AWESOME in class today.

Grace will put her head underwater for up to 10 seconds. She will put her arms out in front of her and "swim", though her feet are still running along the bottom of the pool. All she needs to do is lift those feet up just once and there will be no turning back. She's not hot on jumping into the pool, but I'm hoping that will come over the next two weeks. Since she did so great this week we decided to sign her up for one more session - we'd hate for her to lose her momentum.

I'm so proud of my big girl.

Kicking on the side before getting in. 

Warming up with the noodle. 

More warming up (notice the big cheeks holding her breath in). 

She loves her swim class. 

Swimming 

Swimming some more. 

Watching Jessica and Matthew who kick with their feet up. 

Grace and Coach Bonner 

Grace spent the tail end of class spinning around under the water by herself. 

Alex was very good watching his sister in her swim class. 

When I grow up...

Grace the following conversation with me the other day: "Mommy, when I get big big big then I will be the mommy and you will be the baby Gracie in my belly." So I explained to her that when she was grown up and became a mommy and had her own little baby, then I would be a grandma and Daddy would be a granddad. Took her a while to figure that one out, but then she finally accepted it.

So tonight we were reading "Curious George goes to the Hospital" and the conversation veered toward reasons why you go to the hospital. Once again I told her how wonderful it was when I went to the hospital and then got to come home with my two beautiful babies. Grace then said "Mommy, when I get big big and then you will be the grandma and maybe I'll have a tiny Aunt Kim in my belly."

All I could think to say to that one was "Maybe you will, Gracie."

Tiny Aunt Kim.

Alex's new Army haircut to go with his new Army crawl.

Dang it

Well, my breast pump broke today. Of course it's the big main piece of it; not some part that I have a backup for. Now I'm going to have to go to Target tomorrow and buy a whole new one ($40). What sucks is that we are planning on this being the last kid, and I only really need one for the next 3 months to have milk to mix with Alex's cereal in the morning (I can start giving him cow's milk at 12 months old). Alex is old enough that I'm never away from him long enough to need a bottle (Cheerios or some other food could also be subsituted in a pinch). But of course this coming weekend is my 20th high school reunion. And I'm leaving both kids with Jim for Friday and Saturday night. And I have no idea what time I'll make it home since the events are evening ones plus they are all the way over in downtown Ft. Worth. So I'll need to make sure he has some milk on hand in case all hell breaks loose. And since it is less than a week away, there isn't enough time to just order the one part I need from the company. So I guess instead of buying myself something new to wear to my reunion, I'm buying myself a new breast pump. Dang it.

He Crawls!

Oh lord. Alex can now move forward at will. Grace's toys and all wall outlets beware.

Steve Blow rocks

Steve Blow is one of my favorite columnists in the Dallas Morning News. A down to earth writer with really good common sense columns. His column last Sunday really made me think (read it here if you'd like). It's about how the war in Iraq can be seen as almost a spectator sport. With the all volunteer army and the dropping numbers associated with it, the majority of American people are not directly touched by what is going on over there. And while it is easy to put a magnetic ribbon on your SUV (seen while you fill it up at the gas station), the news on Iraq is almost becoming an afterthought, pushed deeper into the newspaper or becoming less and less the main story on the evening news.

He points out that in the President's address last week he really wishes that more had been actually asked of the American people. Like urging citizens to enlist or proposing a temporary tax to pay for the Iraq invasion. "That would certainly focus our attention" he writes. Also brings to mind the arguments people throw out there of bringing back the draft (to "Let the Congressmen in Washington feel what it's like to have a son or daughter be sent to war and see how much support they then give it").

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily in favor of either a war tax or the return of the draft. But I think a lot about how this current war doesn't affect most American's lives at home a bit, of course other than concern over American lives in danger there. There's no rationing here, no "victory gardens", nothing in my - and most people's, I assume - daily life that has changed at all due to this war. Other than longer waits in the security line at the airport, but even that can be attributed to Al Queda/bin Laden. No matter WHAT the current administration now alludes did not have anything to do with Iraq - where's the WMDs???

A bit of disclosure here: while I was not a supporter of the invasion of Iraq (never a compelling argument made to me to justify that extreme of an action), I do support our troops. I'm the daughter of a life-long Army reservist who did active duty for quite a few years and I am extremely thankful for the freedoms our military have won for us over the years. I feel like it is a very noble service for the country, and I'm thankful that there are braver people than myself out there who are willing to put their lives on the line for us.

Anyway, why can't this time be used to wean us off of foreign oil, even a little bit. How about some gas rationing? Or, even better, some higher mileage standards imposed for vehicles? Or big tax credits/incentives for utilizing sustainable energy resources? It's probably too late now to push anything like this through - the time to do that was right after 9-11 when the country was up in arms and galvanized behind a common goal. But I'm afraid too many of us are apathetic about doing anything other than paying lip service supporting the war, and really just don't want to be inconvenienced in any way. God bless America.

What to write, what to write

Well, I have about four things I want to write about tonight. So I had to decide between talking about Steve Blow's column in today's paper, thoughts about the first girl's beach trip, nostalgia from scanning high school photos, and my fat baby. The fat baby won.

Alex normally sleeps in footed pajamas. I know that sounds crazy since the LOW temperature has been hovering around 80 degrees, but Alex's room is really small with a big ceiling fan plus the A/C blows just about directly on his crib. But upon bringing him upstairs to put to bed (late) tonight at about 8:45, the thermostat was reading 80 degrees even though the A/C was set to 74. I just couldn't bring myself to zip him up in those jammies, especially since he was comfortably in just a diaper after having a nice cool bath downstairs. Remembering that I'd received some hand-me-down shorts jammies from the Ohio cousins, I dug through the drawers only to realize that 12 month size Carters (fitting 20-23 lbs) won't work with my 8-month old 25 lb guy (confirmed today on the in-law's scales). After a little more digging I found some of Grace's old 18 month size Carters (gender neutral, of course). But apparently the 24-26 lbs of other babies is not packed in the belly and massive thighs like on my son. The shorts were sucking up into his thigh folds much like Homer Simpson's Speedo did up his butt. I finally gave up on pajamas and put him in Grace's just grown out of Rangers shirt (size 2T) and diaper. Of course the shirt fits him like he could just wear it with shorts tomorrow. What a tank.