fishie in a bucket

 SWIMMING LESSONS! Must be summer. I signed Maddy up for a two week session of swimming lessons at the local rec center. They have 30 minute lessons for two weeks, four days each week. There are four little girls in her class. They started pretty slowly the first day with putting various body parts in the water "Can you put your chin in the water?" "Can you put your right ear in the water?" The kids did their very best to put the least amount of body into the water while still complying with the teacher's request. They had to get a bit more creative about avoiding the water when he asked them to put both ears into the water at the same time! The practiced blowing bubbles and holding to the wall and kicking their legs. Not too much to worry about for the first day or two.

 

 

Since that first day, Maddy has definitely become braver. They play a game called "fishie in a bucket". Think ring around the rosie. One kid gets in the middle and all the others join hands around her. They sing/chant "fishie in a bucket, fishie in a bucket, how you gonna get out? How you gonna get out? can't go over it, gotta go under it" and then the kids are supposed to swim under the water to get under the arms. The first day all the girls just reached out and lifted up the joined hands or went under the teacher's armpit to get out. Now they all will duck down under the water as the game intends.

 

 

They play "motor boat, motor boat go so fast . . . " to practice kicking their legs. She likes this game as you can tell by her smile :)

 

 

 

They also play "chop, chop, timber". The kids stand up on the wall and, one at a time, tell the teacher what kind of tree they are (I often hear things like a butterfly tree, a mermaid tree, a dolphin tree, a bell tree  - very creative kids). Then he gently chops at their calves "chop, chop" then steps back and says "timber" and they jump in. The first few days Maddy squatted down so far her bum was almost on the ground. She reached out ('til she was almost falling in) and grabbed his hands before she would jump. Six lessons in and she still squats (not quite as far down) but will jump to him without having to hold on. Two lessons to go and I suspect on Friday she'll be trusting enough to know that she can just jump and he'll be there to lift her out of the water.

 

One of the biggest contributions to her confidence has been goggles. She doesn't have a clue how to really keep them on and they sometimes get water in them, but with them on, she is much more happy to put her head under the water. She's less concerned with water getting in her eyes and so she works on holding her breath and blowing bubbles. She's not constantly complaining, while rubbing here eyes, that some big kid splashed her. The thought has crossed my mind that I'm not letting her learn that water in her eyes is not the worst thing in the world. However, maybe that can be taught after she has learned that she can hold her breath and won't die if her whole head goes under. All in time right?



 

 

I'm wishing a little bit that I had signed her up for the next level a week or so after we finish this first session. As it stands, the classes all fill up within a day of opening so I'll now have to wait until next summer to get her into the next level. Oh well.

 

I'm glad that we decided to pay for lessons for her as I don't think I would have known where to start if I were trying to teach her myself. I'm sure eventually she'd learn - I did. But her teacher has so many games and little tricks to help the kids learn ("do 5 bobs and three rocket ships" "make your hands like ice cream scoops and reach for your ice cream - chocolate, twist, chocolate, twist"). I think I could teach a second child now that I'm aware of the tricks but I had no idea where to even start with Madelyn. Besides, I think she listens much better to "teacher" than she ever would to mommy.

Taylorsville Dayzz

Taylorsville has THE BEST FIREWORKS SHOW!

 

I'm not kidding.

 

Friday evening we went and parked behind the fire station across from the park and ate our Leatherby's Ice Cream (Oh, love me some Bart's Black and Tan). We waited until 10pm only to find the one tree in our horizon was perfectly situated to block our view. So we jumped out quick as can be and ran to sit on the lawn.

 

waiting for the show, my camera made this street light look like some weird noodle

 

Friday night's show ran for about 19 minutes, which I'll admit, does not make for the BEST FIREWORK SHOW ever.

 

However, Saturday night . . .

 

(As an aside, Maddy and I had a sleepover on the trampoline Friday night - it was HOT!)

 

 

Saturday we jumped into the car and headed back towards the fire station with about 10 minutes to go before the show was to start. The place was packed. We drove to a parallel street thinking that we could look over the empty field with no trees to obstruct the view - so did about 20 other cars. We drove to the canal road thinking it might work but, trees had grown too much since we last watched from there and there just was no view this year. We finally ended up by the junior high school just up the street from us. It sits on a bit of a hill and we discovered a perfect view!

 

We watched the show - this time about 30 minutes long talking about how great we remembered the finale to be. It came and it was grand! We started the car and pulled out into the road to head home (thinking, how great is this, a good view and also no traffic to our house, this spot is a winner) only to discover that that wasn't the finale and the show kept going!

 

After another 5 or 7 minutes we watched the real finale from the tailgate of the truck in the driveway, we could see from out house but were lower and had a bit of an obstructed view but still, it was a GRAND finale. Next year, I'm thinking the overpass to the jr. high might be the way to go! Hopefully nobody discovers that is a great spot at least for a few years.

 

holes

 

I was waiting for an "after" picture before I wrote this post but I'm afraid that maybe I'll never get around to it. I want to remember this, so into the blog it goes.

 

A bit ago, we bought 8 honeysuckle plants to plant along the side of the wall. The hopes were that they would grow up and cover the cinder block and keep the junior high kids from spray painting gang signs on the wall. In years past, we planted ivy hoping it would grow up and do the same but it doesn't seem to want to climb without some help.

 

Scott installed some really lovely lattice on the walls and I physically wound some ivy in to help train it to go up. He also built a small wall and filled it with good dirt so that the honeysuckle could have good ground and might actually grow. He said the wall also allowed him to not run the snowblower into the dirt in the winter so double score.

 

One day nearing the end of this project, Maddy came to me and said that she needed me to get my scissors and to cut those big black things from the plants. She had seen me cutting the buckets from the root balls on other plants. I told her that I wasn't ready to plant the honeysuckle yet and that we still had to dig holes. She told me that she had already dug holes - eight in fact.

 

Sure enough, I wandered over and she had correctly counted that we needed eight holes and she had dug them for us. They were a bit too close together to be used but I was so impressed that she had counted the plants and then transfered the knowledge to how many holes she would need, and then dug just the right number. I shouldn't be impressed about these things, she's no dummy - but I constantly am. I hope that these moments and my amazement at her accomplishments never cease. They make me proud to be her mommy. I hope that I gave those moments to my mom and that I continue to do so.