Graduation

Earlier this summer I spotted a boy toddler bike at a garage sale and asked about the price.  She looked at me and shrugged and said, "Two bucks?"

While the plan was to let Eli use Myka's turquoise toddler bike when she learned to ride her (also garage sale find) big girl bike, I couldn't pass up such a bargain.  We just needed to get Myka going on her big bike so we could put her training wheels on Eli's new bike.  Unfortunately, the weather, time, and lack of interest got in the way of that plan.  A few weeks went by and I finally just moved the training wheels to Eli's bike so he could ride it once in awhile.  Myka then resorted to walking, dribbling a soccer ball, or riding her scooter when we would take walks together.  She really didn't want to ride that two wheeler.

A few weeks ago we were all home and I mentioned to Kurt that we should work on  it again.  We took her to the perfect spot... a grassy basin that had about a ten foot hill and then 100 yards of wide open grass.  We started her at the top and let her ride down the hill over and over until she could pedal and keep the bike going once she got to the flat part.  It worked like a charm and in about 15 minutes she could ride half way across the field.  We moved to the sidewalk and worked on starting and stopping, then headed on our path around the pond.  Kurt walked/jogged with her while she rode, usually going about 10-20 yards before she would stop and try to start again.  The next evening we went back out and Kurt ran around the pond with her about 4 times.  I don't think he's run that far since he was 20.  The next day he followed her on his bike just to keep up, and the rest is history.

Lil Swimmers

I'm catching up on pictures that are stored on the new camera.  I have found that when I transfer them to the computer, the videos get lost in space somewhere.  Apparently the technology of the camera is past the level that our photo program recognizes, so I learned to be careful in how I upload everything.  And by "be careful", I mean, just don't do it. 

But I can get pictures safely off of the camera now, so here you go...

We had a fun summer in the water around here.  My kids are fearless in their 18 inches of hose water in the blow up pool and they will run through sprinklers until the ground is muddy.  Swimming lessons, however, are another story.  Myka was 5 for her first round this summer and was in an area of the pool where she could still touch, barely, so she was confident enough to try to learn the skills.  As a 6 year old, however, the exact same class was moved down to deeper water and she froze.  And it was 105 degrees outside.  The girl wouldn't move.  She did not like the fact that she had to learn new things and couldn't touch the bottom if it didn't work out.  Her teacher did what she could but didn't baby her (which I liked) but I was getting more and more frustrated with her not even trying anything, to the point where I told her she would be paying me back for part of the lessons if she was just going to sit there like a lump. 

Eli had to watch Myka's first session since he was still 2, but when he turned 3 he got to go in the preschool 1 class.  This class starts the kids in the baby pool with toys and games to get them wet, and then walks them down to the big pool for the last 15 minutes to work on floating and getting comfortable in the water.  The first day he tolerated it, but told me after that he didn't want to go in the big pool tomorrow.  The next 5 lessons he cried when they went into the big  pool.  There's a special kind of feeling you get when, above the laughter and excitement of the other 50 children in the water, you hear your own son wailing, "I want my mommmmmmy!"  Especially when you are wearing a shirt that says UNI Swimming on it.  Yep, that's my boy!

But since that week was so hot, we had plenty of opportunities to be in "big pools" and I had a chance to lay a little smack down with both kids about the fact that they just needed to suck it up, and by the last 4 days they were great.  Myka was swimming back and forth to her teacher who said, "where was that last week?" and Eli was telling his teacher not to catch him as he jumped in off the side.  We rounded out the summer with our annual trip to my aunt and uncle's pool where I finally had a camera to catch all the action.

Eli went off the board by himself about 127 times with just us to grab him and bring him up and help him to the side.  Myka did pretty much everything OTHER than jumping off without any floaties.  Guess we'll work on that next year.