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My little swimmers!

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This isn’t the best video of how great Katie swims but it’s something (I have one week left to get a good video). She has no fear and just kick-kick-kicks her little legs so cute and motors around the pool.

Her favorite thing to do, however, is to climb up the ladder (not the steps—the ladder on the other side of the pool), walk two steps to the pool edge, then get back in the pool by sitting on her butt, rolling onto her stomach, then sliding into the pool. I hope to get a video of that, too. 🙂

Owen has apparently taught himself how to swim by watching other kids and maybe taking a few small tips from me (though he never seems to care, he must be listening). He obviously does better when he’s not holding a gun in one of his hands but it’s still miles ahead of where he was just a few weeks ago.

I can’t wait to get them both lessons next summer.

Both kids also like playing with other kids. Two little girls were there and at break time (when the kids have to get out of the big pool) they were all in the kiddie pool. The girls started to leave and Katie piped up: “Guys! Guys?” Their mom told them the little girl wanted them to stay, so they did. 🙂 Later when they did leave, Katie said “Bye! See you soon!” 🙂 Later, Owen was over playing ball with the girls and Katie had to be right in the middle of it. 🙂

Family fun at Pirates Cove

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Before we moved, I bought a Groupon for Pirates Cove Waterpark and today was the day! It’s not huge like Great Wolf Lodge, but it’s plenty to keep the kids busy. We started in the wading pool (which is where Katie was supposed to stay since she isn’t potty trained).

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She did pretty good at waiting her turn in line when it was just a few kids, but when it got to be more than four or five, she either wanted to push to the front of the line or wait and let everyone pass her.

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While I was with Katie, Tom was with Owen over in the bigger pool.

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We asked him why he was swimming like this and he said because someone had tied his hands behind his back with a rope! Tom said he even went DOWN the waterslide like that. I love his imagination. 🙂

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Unfortunately, I could only keep Katie happy and occupied for so long before she REALLY wanted to go in the big pool with daddy and Owen. As in she was starting to throw a fit. So we left the gated wading pool…but the wheel only worked for about two minutes.

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Finally! She was with daddy in the big pool and she was HAPPY. And fearless. She went under twice, coughed and spit a bit, and then kept on chugging.

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She loved loved LOVED the waterslide. She would have gone down it the rest of the day if we let her.

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She really liked the pirate, too!

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And then we had a major tantrum because it was time to go back to the wading pool and she DID. NOT. WANT. TO. GO. I’ll spare you the few tantrum pics I took (and deleted). We got a funnel cake for a snack and that didn’t really even appease her much. Then she saw the sand area…so that’s where we headed.

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We had planned to stay longer, but about 2:30 we were leaving. Tom came up and said that Owen was being a major grouch so he lost his pool privileges. It felt like we had been there for a long time…but it was ONLY TWO HOURS. Egads. But the kids had fun. I can definitely see us getting a summer pass next year!

Well, that was some excitement.

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Owen locked Katie in his bedroom (technically accidentally but kind of on purpose because he was playing) and—SURPRISE!!—we don’t have a key to open it. None of the generic tools I found were working, our landlord didn’t have a key either, none of the neighbors we knew were home, and the hinges and knob screws were on the inside of the door (so I couldn’t remove them). Oh, and Tom is 1000 miles away.

Cue subdued panic for about 30 minutes while I texted Tom, texted the landlord, visited the neighbors, hunted for the tools, etc.

I finally jimmied it open…and now his knob is reversed, too. Is 9:30 too early for a drink?

Oh! The best part? All Owen was concerned with (if we didn’t get the door open) was he wouldn’t be able to sleep in his bed tonight.

I think official daycare is out.

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So I had hoped to get Katie in a 1-2x/week daycare. The place I looked today is $176 for two days (which can be full day or X number of hours, no difference in price). Sorry but $88/day isn’t happening (it drops to about $55/day for a full week at $293). This is why I don’t work. There is no way we can afford this right now.

Owen asked if it was where Katie would be going. I said maybe but it costs a lot of money. After a few moments, Owen said “You can use my money.” 🙁

I am still researching other options for a scheduled program, but it appears but we were spoiled in Jacksonville with the drop-in child care as there’s nothing like that here (or at least close enough to be worth it).

Is it time for my nap yet?

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If Katie doesn’t start sleeping past 6-6:15 I might lose my mind.

Yes I’m thankful she sleeps soundly through the night, but 6am kills me. (It can be anywhere from 5:45-6:30 but mostly it’s 6:05-6:10.)

She has learned how to open her door so we’ve turned her knob around so we can lock her in, but that causes loud crying when she can’t get out. But if we don’t do that she gets up and wanders the house and I have to get up anyway to keep her out of mischief. Owen sleeps consistently to about 6:30 so I have to get her quickly to shut her up so she doesn’t wake him (their rooms are next to each other). Then she always says some variation of “Want to get Owee” or “I want to play Owee.”

And of course Owen won’t have to be at the bus stop until 8:30 so it’s not like we’ll need to be up earlier once school starts.

We’ve tried exhausting her (skipping her nap, running her ragged) and it didn’t have an effect. We tried putting her to bed early—no change. The only thing left is putting her to bed later…which I hate but we might have to just try. (She slept in regularly on vacation at my mom’s, and the only differences there were a bit darker room and sometimes staying up later.)

Owen definitely spoiled us…he’d just play in his room quietly until we came and got him. He’d stay there for hours if we let him. But her? NEEDS ATTENTION.

Is it time for my nap yet?

I think he’s teaching himself to read.

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Because we certainly aren’t doing much with him—he rarely wants to read books with us anymore and I don’t see him ever reading books…but the other night, I opened a sight words app on the iPad just to see if he knew any…and he BLEW through most of them with ease:

run up can she the you he red go my this like
look and said move to come is play will big
on funny little ran good of are three down not
one have away at saw yellow here

So then I opened another sight words app that actually had sentences…and he got most of them right, too. Sentences like:

Do you want to play with me?
I saw Santa Claus.
The girl gave the kitten a hug.
I know how to cut paper.
I don’t like to drink milk.
My toy is here.
The rabbit will eat the grass.
What shall we eat this morning?
My dog ran away.

Of course he had a few stumbles on some words, but overall he impressed the shit out of me. (The app gives grade levels for the sight words/sentences and there were a variety of K-third grade level.)

How is he doing this? He mostly plays games on the iPad but we do make him do ABCMouse—so is the 15 minutes a day he’s been doing that responsible?! We’re just flummoxed.