Swimming

I told Bubba a long time ago, way before his birthday, that when he turned three he could take swim lessons with Cakes and Silly. Not long after his birthday he reminded me that he was now big enough for swim lessons. They started Monday and this is how he did:

 

He pretty much cried his head off the whole time. When he wasn't crying he insisted on sitting on the steps, far away from his class, and I had to keep my chair right next to him. There were a bunch of other moms around who kept reassuring me that their child had once done the same thing, as if I seemed very concerned and had never had that kind of experience before. I found their concern rather amusing.

The rest of Monday we kept talking to him about swim lessons and he would tell us, "I not scared anymore." He did much better on Tuesday. He didn't speak to his teacher at all, wouldn't make any eye contact at all, but that isn't unusual for him. He takes a long, long time to warm up to new people. He was in nursery for over a year before his teachers even knew he could talk.

Cakes is her usual super swimmer self. She has ended up with the same swim teacher, Mr. Tyler, more often than not since she started taking lessons at 3 years old. The girl really needs to move up to the swim team but we just can't talk her into it. She loves to swim, she's really good at it, she wants to get better, she wants to swim more, all of which she could do on the swim team, but she's terrified of the whole competition aspect. There's a fine line between encouraging her and pushing her to do better or pushing her over the edge and turning something she loves into something she hates. Baby steps.

Silly is his usual happy, goofy little self. It cracks me up that he is such a good floater. I don't know why I find that amusing, but the kid can float indefinitely. His arm movement for the backstroke needs some serious work though. I wish I had my camera that day. The boy honestly has no idea that his arm is actually capapble of rotating all the way around at his shoulder. Something to work on.

In other news, I think I have found the magical incentive to convince Bubba to use the potty - his own scooter. He is always stealing Silly's scooter, and is actually quite good at it. He was having a meltdown one morning because Silly was riding "his" scooter. I told him that when he uses the potty and wears underwear he can get his very own and then he won't have to share with Silly anymore. He thinks it's a great idea, but we've only convinced him to use the potty once since then. Every time I ask him he says, "No. Not yet." It's gonna take a long time to fill that sticker chart!

Moving On

We are pretty well settled into our new house. We had so many great people helping us that things were all unpacked much quicker than we expected. The only boxes remaining are full of books and movies that currently have no shelves to call home and things that need to be hung on the walls - a step I'm just not ready to take yet! Plus, my mom hasn't been able to come up and see things, and she's such a pro at those sorts of things that I don't dare get started without her. If both of my younger sisters hadn't decided to have their babies early, mom would've been up here already! We used to be able to say that Ramsey girls never have early babies (I think Cakes was the only one before now) but not so much anymore after two 37 1/2 weekers in a row.



(Youngest Sister, Baby J born June 7; Younger Sister, baby W born June 23; SIL and Older Blonde Sister, both due in Sept.)



(Collage of baby W by my Oldest Sister)

Poor little baby W had to spend almost an entire week in the hospital because he just wasn't maintaining his glucose levels. He finally went home last night, only to have the power knocked out by a big storm. He sure is little! Cakes was tied for smallest baby at 6lb10oz before, but that seems pretty big now.

Between the two babies I spent a week at Girls Camp pretending I had a clue what I was doing as the leader of all the 12 year old girls. Thankfully I had two great adult leaders who definitely filled in for my weaknesses and four great youth leaders who were willing and even eager to help no matter what. There were lots of girls crying about ticks and spiders, to which I generally responded, "You're outside, there are probably lots more that you can't even see." Just my usually sweet self. While we were there we had the opportunity to try the COPE course (never did learn what that stood for). Mostly my job was to hold onto the harness of the belayer so she didn't going flying into the air when one of the girls fell or jumped, but I did try the scariest one- the pamper pole, which is basically clmbing up a telephone pole, standing on top of it, the top of which happens to spin, then attempting to jump off of it and catch an impossibly far away trapeze. Sounds fun, right? The climbing part was easy, it's the attempting to stand on top of a wobbling, spinning pole then jumping from it that is pretty darn scary. My youth leaders thought the event deserved some pictures so they found my camera.



Checking my harnesses



Almost to the top





Trying to stand




Jumping!

 

Camp was pretty good, only one hot and miserable day, and we were out of there before the rain hit sometime Friday. I drove two girls up to camp, but drove home alone because I was detouring through C'ville to see my baby sister's baby. My mom had my kids while I was camping and she took them up to see baby J during the week. Cakes doesn't seem too disappointed to be holding another baby boy...

 

The rest of my weekend was not so great. Scott's great-aunt passed away Tuesday. When I called to tell Scott I was on my way out of camp he told me he was coming up to Richmond for her funeral. She was one of my favorite relative on his side, so I really wanted to be at her funeral too. Scott did a good job finding everything I needed, since everything I had brought to camp was dirty, smelly and definitely not suitable for a funeral. We both called our moms to let them know our plans had changed, which meant my mom wouldn't be bringing my kids to Chesapeake like she planned, but we'd be spending the night with Scott's parents instead.

Then Scott and I talked again and he told me that his mom said Charlie, our dog, had really gone downhill that week. He hadn't been using one of his back legs for well over a year, then he got sick about 2 weeks before we moved and had to go on a special diet. He was 13 1/2, so we knew he was only going to keep getting worse. His one good back leg had been getting weaker, and it became difficult for him to stand long enough to eat. His bad leg had suddenly become very swollen too, which had never happened before. I called the vet that my in-laws take him to and made an apointment for that night. (Charlie has been what I call a "time share dog" ever since we first listed our house, mostly staying with Scott's parents during all the craziness that comes with selling/showing your house). When I got to my in-laws house, Charlie hardly moved in 3 hours. He got up one time to turn around on his little pillow and it was clearly painful and required a great deal of effort from him. Scott and I took him in at 6:00 Friday night, and knew from Charlie's non-reaction to being at the vet, something that usual has him extremely antsy and anxious, that he was not well at all. Everyone else I know who has put a dog down recently had to schedule an appointment several days out, so I wasn't expecting to be making an immediate decision. The talked to the vet; she said this was definitely not the Charlie she had seen before. When I mentioned possibly bringing him home to Chesapeake first and going to our vet here, she said she definitely wouldn't let us leave there without pain meds and told us that a two hour car ride would be a great deal of stress for him. In the 1 1/2 hours we were there, Charlie hardly moved at all, only lifting his head up twice, and I'd never seen him lay down at the vet's before. He was clearly exhausted and in pain. We decided to put him down that night. I handled it much better than I expected, I think because it was so clearly the right decision.



Charlie as a puppy



We came home and told the kids; Cakes took it pretty hard but the boys don't really get it. Bubba has said several times that Charlie isn't sick anymore, but when I took out all of Charlie's food and such to give away he got upset with me and told me we have to keep it for Charlie. We'd told the kids all along that they better be nice to Charlie and we hoped he would live long enough that all of them would remember him, because we will not ever get another pet.

Yes - we are still alive!

I dropped off the face of the planet for a while there - spring was pretty hectic with soccer, Easter, piano recital, another birthday, and most importantly, packing and moving because we actually sold our house!!! And it only took 19 months. We are so very glad that chapter of our life is over, forever, because Scott says his next move will be to a casket, and I completely agree. Someone would have to offer to do everything buying and selling for us, pack us, and quadruple Scott's salary for me to even possibly consider going through that again. We were a real estate disaster and the only thing that got us through was our realtor who is truly a gift from God and went above and beyond so many ways. We're all settled into our new house now, the kids can't get enough of living on a cul-de-sac and spend all their free time out on their bikes or scooters playing with the one other little girl in our neighborhood. There is one empty house on our street, and we all have our fingers crossed that they'll have some kids to add to the mix!

Cakes and Silly played soccer this spring. We knew Silly would love it, but we were nervous about Cakes because last time she played soccer (granted, she was three) was a disaster; lots of screaming, crying and refusing to participate, even though she talked about playing and looked forward to it all week. Not so this time! We've never seen her competitive side before; personally, I was glad to see she has one.

She lucked out with good weather, not too hot and usually cloudy, for almost every game, which was good because the teams all shrunk a good deal at some point in the season which meant just about everyone played the entire game.

Silly had a blast, as usual. I think it was his last game that I pointed out to Scott that the coaches were saying Silly's name far more often than anyone else, because he was always right there at the ball no matter what. He's a speedy little guy.



I took the kids up to Richmond for part of Easter weekend because one of my sisters was visiting. The dads and big kids went to Busch Gardens and all the little kids went on an egg hunt at a local nursery, except that we got there a whole 4 minutes late and all the eggs were already gone. We'd promised the kids an egg hunt though, so we went to the store and bought lots of eggs and candy, filled them all up and had our own egg hunt in Mamie's yard then let the kids eat candy pretty much all day long. (I was looking through these pictures feeling bad that I didn't have Cakes in any of them, and then remembered that she was at Busch Gardens. Duh.)

And then real Easter at our own house, immediately after which the in-laws came and took the kids back to Richmond for a few days (thus the suitcase on that chair in the living room that doesn't actually belong to me).

 

 

 Those are not fabulous pictures, but I put them on up so you can see my "staged" house. Looks weird, huh? It worked though. Our house was under contract in less than three weeks (after being on the market from October 2010 to December 2011, taking it off the market, taking a break, then starting all over with a new realtor). Then we went out and found a new house in two days and things got even crazier. When life is already crazy, adding in a little more doesn't make a whole lot of difference, so we made the decision to have Silly's birthday party a little early rather than late and after the move (a choice I now know was very wise!) which meant we had Cake's piano recital Saturday morning at 10:00...



Cakes with her piano teacher and fellow piano students

Lesson learned from last year - the picture taking makes her more nervous. I told her we were going to want to take pictures, but she had a choice of before or after, she chose after. Lesson learned this year - MAKE her practice introducing her piece. She hates it, but I made her practice a lot last year and she didn't get too worked up speaking in front of the group. This year I gave her a choice based on what she thought would make her less nervous, she chose no practicing out loud. As you can see from the beginning of the video, she was pretty worked up. I think practicing helped her get some of that anxiety out, so next year we'll practice the speaking part!

After the recital it was off to soccer games for Cakes and Silly at 1:30, followed by a birthday party at 4:00. Why not?

Silly's one request was a cake from Sam's Club. I am not exaggerating when I say every time he has ever gone to Sam's Club with me he has asked if we could get one of their cakes for someone's birthday, whichever birthday happens to be up next. Up till now I have made all of my kids' birthday cakes (which makes 16 cakes if you're interested) but knowing what this particular Saturday looked like, I figured I oughta grant his birthday wish and make my day just the tiniest bit less crazy.

So, that was life before the move. I'll get to all the moving and unpacking and adjusting another day.

Lots of numbers

I haven't posted in a million years because I was waiting for a really exciting, extra special something to happen so I would have something spectacular to write about for my 100th post, but instead of one really spectacular event, there have been lots of pretty cool things happening.

First, my dad turned 70! Can you believe that? My youngest sister's father-in-law is a photographer, a really handy guy to have around for family gatherings. Our three west coast siblings are missing, but 6/9 ain't bad.



My younger sister somehow managed to get a piece of marble from the Detroit Temple (we lived in Michigan for about 9 years) during construction and she'd been hanging on to it, planning to give it to Dad, but waiting for a good time and a great idea. We decided this was the right occasion.

That's the "What great kids" look.




That part about his mother was from something she used to tell us as kids. When she'd come visit we'd ask if she brought any presents (because that's what grandmas do, right?) and she would say, "My gift to you is your father." Dad told everyone else at the party that another one of her favorite things to say, about him and his brother when they were two little neighborhood terrors, was, "They never do anything I tell them not to do, I just never know what they'll think of next," and she sure had a lot of stories to go along with that!

And in more number news, there are FOUR pregnant people in my family right now! There will be two summer babies and two September babies. How fun and exciting is that!?! So far we know one couple is having a boy. I've been emptying out my attic giving away all my maternity clothes and baby stuff because I don't need it anymore; I'm happy to be happy for the other people having babies.

The final number of the day is 3, because my sweet little Bubba turned three yesterday. How can that be? I decided quite some time ago that I was going to make him a space shuttle birthday cake, which would have been really easy, but a week or two ago he announces that he wants a motorcycle cake. I have no idea where he got the idea, but he stuck to it, and brought it up everyday. Who told him he's allowed to have an opinion? He wanted chocolate cake with a motorcycle and candles on it, balloons and water so that's what he got. When we went grocery shopping this week I let him pick out party plates and such.

I didn't hear any complaints, so I guess I met all of his demands. We sang to him, he blew out his candles, ate some cake, and then we spent the next several hours doing yard work. He helped spread mulch.

Once we fixed up the yard (the rain held off for the most part) we all cleaned ourselves up then let him open his presents.

I got him a little guitar. A friend of his has one and that's all he plays with when we visit, so I figured he needed his own. It is pretty cool. I haven't tuned it yet, but it can be done. It even came with a pitch pipe, which he likes quite a bit and it isn't driving me crazy yet. He seems pretty happy; he's strumming away in the kitchen as I type.