and it's monday

Gosh that weekend went by fast! I meant to get back here. I meant to post pictures. I meant to post video. I meant to get caught up over here(yikes, how did I get so far behind?!). I did none of those. Obviously.
Possibly today.

I'm hoping for a laid back kind of day today. The kids are exhausted from the weekend. Honestly last night was the first time in a week they've been asleep before nine. And their normal bedtime is 7:30!
So this weekend we had a couple of big dance performances (dress rehearsal took almost 4 hours!!) and yesterday a big afternoon at the pool which wiped us all out!
We haven't been to our pool yet since it's been open, the kids are in the middle of swimming lessons at the outdoor city pool, but yesterday we had a church bbq at a friend's house so with their backyard pool, this was the first time this year the kids have been "swimming". For Sawyer, it was like he never missed a day since being the fish he was last summer. The kids have these swim vests and Savannah, who lived in hers last summer, was able to swim all over the pool yesterday and play with the bigger kids. She had blast with her friends and even playing around on the floating island thingie. And like I said, Sawyer, who didn't quite have the balance down last year (these vests are different than the floaty suits or a life jacket... they give you buoyancy, but you have to "swim" and use your body to balance and keep your face out of the water) is apparently an old pro now with the swim vest. He was trying to paddle all around the pool. He is just completely fearless. I'm a little fearful for our summer at the pool. I wouldn't be surprised if he completely shuns the kid pool and only wants to be in the big pool with his vest on.
Anyway, yesterday he jumped off the side (forget jump... this kid was running and leaping and attempting tricks!) and taught himself how to paddle back to the wall and "hand walk" on the edge halfway down the pool back to the steps. He was enormously proud of himself that he could do this whole sequence "by himself". He then jumped no less than 284 times. Don't think I'm exaggerating here. We had to force him to take a break (complete with a toddler tantrum) because Ryan needed a break. We pried the vest off of him and begged him to just stop and take a breather. It lasted less than 5 minutes before he talked me back into the water. I started out telling him we were just going to rest on the steps in the water. Then he was doing bobs. Then he was walking out as far as he could, and then he wanted to float around in a ring. Then he was back to jumping off the wall. Without the vest. This kid is crazy. He'd stand on the edge and tell me to back up... holding up his hands, telling me "back, back!". So I'd back up... he'd jump and I let him do it all on his own. We were in four feet of water and he was full on jumping in, coming back up to the top on his own and then he'd need just just a little push to swim back to the side and he'd handwalk the edge back to the steps and get out for another jump. Repeat another 87 times.

I think we're going to have to continue swimming lessons for him all summer just to give me a smidge less stress with him at the pool. Although more skills might only boost more confidence. This kid seems to think he was born to swim and he needs to learn some safety skills and get the basics down so I'm not so fearing for his life the whole time we're at the pool with this air breathing fish.
The problem is, he's so young. He's not technically supposed to be in any "lessons" until he's three. Everything our city offers, and also at the Y, for under three years is a parent/child get used to/have fun in the water thing with "introduction" to swimming skills. His current teacher said that he should be able to move up to the youngest non-parent participant lessons after this session since he is so much more comfortable and ahead of the game in his class... but after that, I don't see a two-and-a-half year old being allowed in the other level one classes with 4 and 5 year olds. He won't turn three until November! But I'm predicting he could easily be full-on swimming by the end of the summer. Our only option may be private lessons. Which means more $ than I want to spend. Ugh.
Or I can just sequester him to the wading pool for one more summer! ha! yeah right.

Geez, that turned into more of a 'Spotlight on Sawyer' post than I meant it to. To get back to what I started out just saying... how much fun we had at the pool with all our friends. It was a super hot day and when we finally drug the kids out of the pool and got home, we all vegged out (cat napped) in front of a movie on the big comfy couch in the cool basement. And later, the kids were in bed for the night before 7pm!

Savannah did AWESOME at her dance recital both Friday and Saturday... I have yet to even look at any pictures I took, but like I said I'll try to get some of those in order today. And we have some video, but that's up to Ryan to render and post on here, so that'll have to wait for this evening.
It's kind of a cooler (yay, only mid 80's!!) gray and rainy day today... perfect for a low key recoop from the weekend kind of Monday. A little housecleaning and putting together a plate of goodies for our new neighbors are the only thing on our agenda today.