A New Swimming Instructor

We have a new swimming teacher now, Ms. Becky.  Our old teacher, Ms. Mary, apparently has something “wrong with her ear,” (sounds a bit fishy to me…) so Ms. Becky will be taking over for the remainder of our classes this term.  Already, there’s an improvement in what we do.  Ms. Becky has a skills sheet to help track the progress of each child.  Apparently, Ms. Mary hadn’t filled them out… yet… or even knew they existed!  Ms. Becky apologized for feeling a little lost without that information about each of our children, but she accomplished more today than we have in the past three lessons combined:  we used float belts that could be positioned for front floating or for back floating, we practiced climbing out of the pool and jumping back in, we practiced kicking and reaching, and we tried blowing bubbles in the water.  We still played with water toys and sang a couple of the kiddie songs like The Wheels on the Bus, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, and Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.  There was a lot less down time today than in the past.  I think all the parents noticed that and seemed pretty happy about the new teacher!

Shawn was getting ready to nap right when Raj came home from work.  It was a bit of a struggle to settle him down again, but after a quick kiss hello from Dadda, he was so tired that he couldn’t keep his eyes open for very long.  When he woke up, I opened the door his room and he met me at his bedroom door!  It’s the first time he’s actually gotten out of his bed when he’s woken up.  Raj thought that this was going to happen right away, but usually Shawn just sits up and calls for me.   This time, he was trying to turn the door knob when I opened it.  I was greeted with a big, mischievous smile, a couple of giggles, and “I had a good nap!”  What a way to wake up.  Gotta love it!

We ate dinner downstairs.  I made pizza in a spring-form pan, which Raj has receptively requested to be the way I make them from now on.  Shawn sat on his own stool at the bar.  What a big boy.  He even devoured all of his cooked carrots and his own slice of pizza before a dessert of “shawbees and booboos” (which he always wants together) and “gapes” (aka, strawberries, blueberries, and grapes).  He’s getting pretty good at eating with his fork.  He certainly likes having a fork, though sometimes he simply holds it in one hand while he picks up food with the other.  (Last night, Shawn placed an individual carrot slice from his plate onto his tray and then stabbed it with his fork.  When he successfully got it all the way to his mouth, Raj and I would cheer and applaud his triumph.  That got him pretty excited!)  Tonight, he ate the carrots with his fork with no problem, but the pizza was a little tricky – the toppings complicated things when they wouldn’t stay on his cut up slice.  Dadda helped a few times, but Shawn’s fingers picked up the slack whenever the fork wasn’t being effective. 

After Raj gave him a bath, Shawn and I settled in for a bedtime story in the rocking chair.  He decided either the story was too long or he was too tired to listen to the whole thing, so we moved to his bed.  Just as I thought he was drifting off, he’d announce something like, “I had a bath with Dadda.  I got clean and brushed my teeth!”  Yes!  That’s right!  You certainly did!  Now... go to sleep!