Life As We Know It!

Friday, August 16, 2019

Swimming

Most of our summer is spent swimming. We have afternoon practices which I like better than I thought. We slept in and then went to a park, the zoo or ocean breeze with friends and then headed to swim practice. Then by the time we get home its time for dinner and bed. The kids all moved up into new age groups this year so we weren't sure how they would do. Norah ended up the highest point winner for her age group, Joel most improved. Colin and Norah made Divisionals and then JOEL was asked to swim in the All Star relay because one boy was out of town and Joel was the next fastest boy. Norah made All Stars too and Colin was a sad boy. He more than the others want to make All Stars but he was very encouraging to his brother and sister all week leading up to All Stars. It did help when we went to his pulmonologist a week ago and learned Colin's numbers have gone down from 80% to 60% and he needs to go back on a daily inhaler. I joked that that was why he didn't make All Stars. His doctor used to be a swim coach and actually agreed with me and said that would've made a difference. So next year will be his year we hope.

Joel insisted on wearing his swim shirt during the swim meets. I had to talk him out of it for All Stars. And he dropped 2 seconds without it. He said kids would call him fat if he didn't wear it. His friends rallied around him and encouraged him and made sure no one called him fat. It also helped that he had a friend Hudson sleep over that week and Hudson had told Joel he looked better without his shirt when they were going to bed.

Owen on the left of Colin beat him every time this summer. Colin could always beat Owen in fly but Owen (even though hes 6 days younger than colin grew a lot this year) I tried to tell Colin that from the time he was 7 he just wanted to be able to beat Aaron - the boy to the right of him. And now he can beat Aaron so he's gotten better. Max, the other boy, and Colin are usually right together and take turns outtouching each other at the finish.

Colins first love is butterfly but he has made Divisionals almost every year in backstroke. I keep telling him he's related to Hannah so of course back will come easy for him. He looks effortless when he swims and remembers to keep his head back.

Colin and Issac have been on the team together since they were in guppies. In fact Issacs mom was Colins guppy coach.

Anna on the left has always loved Norah and is usually the volunteer in the lanes Norah swims in. One day during practice Norah got out crying and came over to me and said Anna keeps telling me I'm doing it all wrong!!!!! It was the beginning of the season when they were teaching breastroke. I told her Annas best stroke is breastroke so shes trying to help you learn it so you don't get disqualified. She went back in and then swam it in the meet the next night and didn't get disqualified so she listened to Anna after that without complaining.

I was at the Divisionals meeting where we picked the Divisionals team. Its the top 2 swimmers in each event. And then the coaches told us the most improved kids but we didn't go over the highest point because that's never a question - its all printed out. So I was SHOCKED when Norah got it. Theres a few 8 year old girls who swim year round but Norah never missed a meet so she got the highest points. Not too bad for moving up.

Joel did improve his times. One meet Mom and Dad, Sarah and Mary came to watch and they said Joel was just going slow in backstroke and taking his time. Turns out he did drop time.

The first time Norah was disqualified all summer was in Divisionals. They had taught her the breastroke pullout that week and she thought she needed to do that same pull each stroke. And then for the first time she got disqualified in butterfly. They said she scissor kicked which she claims she didn't do (she kept her legs together like a mermaid) but it might've been once. She was so upset. And she would've made All Stars but there's always next year.

Shes fast in her relays

It was a great season and we are already looking forward to next summer when they will all be at the top of their age groups.

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Double Digit Getaway

Joel has been trying to come up with what he wanted all year. A weekend with just Mom and Dad and no siblings. At first he didn't want to be in the car at all so he wanted to stay in town. But when we went to Blacksburg a few weeks ago and went kayaking and paddleboating he remembered tubing on the New River a few years ago. So he declared he wanted to go back to Blacksburg a few weeks later for his double digit getaway. So we drove up and dropped off Colin and Norah with Mama-maa and Grandpa and headed to the river.

When we were waiting in line for our inner tubes Joel said it felt weird to be without Colin and Norah. He almost wasn't sure of what to do without them. He is so used to having to compromise or fight for exactly what he wanted that when it was just him we had to really get him to make a decision. For the double digit getaway they get to choose what we do and where we eat and make all the decisions. Joel was so patient, agreeable, and easy going the entire weekend. Poor middle child needs time away with just him.

We were looking at hotels to stay in Blacksburg and Mountain Lake Lodge worked with our credit card points so I campaigned to stay there. Joel wanted to go tubing and do some small hikes so Mountain Lake Lodge was perfect to stay at.

One day we hope the lake will fill up again and where Joel is standing will be all water. It was a massive lake when it was completely filled. Joel loved doing the hike around the lake because the last time we did it a bunch of trees were down and covering the tail. This time it was clear and the rhododendron were blooming.

We had Joel take a bath to wash the river water off before bed. He turned on the jets and was overjoyed at all the bubbles that the jets made. He eventually drained the water and just played in the mountain of bubbles.

We spent the rest of the weekend walking the trails and swimming in the pool. A lunch at Macados and then we were back to Mama-ma and Grandpas house to get Colin and Norah.

Its always fun and greatly needed to spend time with each kid one on one. And 10 year olds are pretty special. Such a great time with our Joel.

(Norah has 3 years until her double digit getaway.....she has her heart set on Hawaii! ha! that would be fun but our rules are within driving distance for a weekend)

Double Digits

Double digits

This boy is now officially 10!

On his birthday he wanted 10 candles in his breakfast and lunch so we could all sing to him and he could blow them out.

He has matured a lot this year. The poop and fart jokes are still going strong and he loves to push EVERY SINGLE BUTTON of Norah's, but where before he could not be reasoned with, now we feel like we can reason with him and he gets it.

He has the sweetest heart - at the first swim meet our team was giving out these mini beach balls to our buddies (each swimmer has either an older or a younger buddy) so the buddies had to meet and find each other and come over for a prize. One girl from the other team came over and wanted a beach ball. Unfortunately we couldn't give her one because we didn't have enough for the other team. She cried and walked away and the next thing I knew Joel was walking over and giving her his very own beach ball that he had just gotten. He does stuff like that all the time.

He still dealt with bullies at school this year. He even had a friend on the swim team call him fat - I overhead and had a talk with that boy and his mother. But Joel was more upset that his friend felt bad than what it did to him. It'll be interesting to see if one day his fight for injustice and his experience with bullies will end up forming him to be the best advocate for people. Its hard to see him go through all that.

He is still way too smart for his own good. He will always find any loophole to anything and work it so it always benefits him. His brain is always working. He was falling asleep one night and leaned over and asked if I ever imagined a tiny little work crew inside my body screwing and nailing pieces of skin back together to heal cuts. And when he tells stories he goes into great detail of everything. I would love to see the inner workings of his brain. This summer all his friends have said how great he would be at coming up with commercial jingles. He comes up with some funny stuff and it gets inside your head.

On his birthday we had a swim meet. That would never be something he would purposely choose to do on his birthday. He was complaining when we got in the car to drive to the swim meet so I told Colin and Norah that we were going to tell Joel all the things we loved about him. Joel was so funny - he wouldn't take something like Colin saying he made him laugh and then Norah saying he was funny since they were similar. He wanted to hear all different things. He would also ask us to elaborate if he didn't understand why we had said something and then he would tell us if he accepted that compliment or not. By the end of the drive (and it was about a 40 minute drive) he was smiling and happy to get out of the car.

And I think he ended up glad we were at the swim meet that night with his friends.

And since he had to have his birthday at the swim met I bought mini cupcakes for the entire team. We were going to sing and give them out at the halftime break (I had asked his coach when would be the best time) but the meet was running so slow so they cut the halftime break. So I sent Joel around with his pack of friends to give them out to everyone. The rest of the night I had people coming up saying how cute Joel was - as swimmers came out of the water he would be standing there saying "you swam great - have a cupcake"

Joel gives the best hugs, has the greatest laugh, is the champion of all unfairness in his life, and constantly brings us to our knees in prayer. The world needs more Joels and we couldn't be more grateful that God entrusted us with this sweet strong-willed boy 10 years ago.