Last Tuesday morning swim – next week it reverts to evening sessions. Got up to find that the loo wouldn’t flush, didn’t appear to be refilling with water. Odd, but assumed it would be something Tim would sort out.
(Yes, I know that doesn’t sound very feminist, but Tim knows way more about looking after houses than I do, if I needed to know it like when I lived alone, I would deal, but I don’t need to right now, so I concentrate on the things I do need to do. 🙂 )
Tim was up before we needed to leave while we were still doing the finding last little bits for day bags, and told me there had been a leak under the kitchen floor so he’d turned the water off before going to bed. That would explain it then. Left him to deal with that and went off to swimming.
There in good time, especially as Small had his trunks on under his trousers today. And we’d remembered to put pants in his bag for after 😉 His teacher finally back today, without so much as a word of explanation, though she did have one armed strapped up, so perhaps the brief rumour of a broken arm was the nearest to the truth. I do not have a problem with ppl being off, things happen, but I do have a problem with poor communication. What would it have hurt to have told us what was going on?
Anyway, she seemed to be putting them through their paces today, in preparation for moving some up as I think this lesson was actually the first of the new set of 10. Think there were nearly 10 children in Small’s group today, and know from seeing the list that there are actually 11 booked in, which is one more than the max, so she needs to move a couple out. Looks like it’s going to be Small’s friend P, which will no doubt upset Big’s friend C, but at least I overheard Denise saying that they need to be able to swim across on front and back, and C does keep stopping to put her feet down to breath when she’s swimming on her front. They are spending next week at a waterpark Eurocamp in Holland though, so she might get enough practise to sort it out then 🙂
Not sure it’s going to do her much good in catching Big up though, her teacher was giving her last minute instructions as she came out of the pool and the impression he gave was that she’s very near to moving up again herself. Apparently she needs to lift her left arm out of the water in crawl as she isn’t doing, and her breaststroke still needs some work, but they are looking at that next week. And she only started breaststroke during this course of 10 lessons, so I’m not too surprised. He says her crawl is quite powerful though, which I’d thought, seeing it during her lessons. Very proud of her, she’s really making fast progress now, and that’s without me taking them swimming much in between lessons.
And on to our beach playdate. J had taken Small out with her two while I waited for Big – she was only 10 minutes ahead of me and I figured by the time she’d gone to her car to pick up their beach stuff there wouldn’t be that long for him to get stressed. Sure enough when I got out there they were very happily building a sandosaurus, one of Small’s favourite things to do. She did tell me later that it had been his idea, and that he’d been quite happy to adapt it and name it after all three boys together.
Once I was there he was allowed to go paddling, and did, up to his waist. This lack of fear of water is definitely a two edged sword! Big was in and out as well, trying to swim in it, and nearly managing 🙂 J said she thought I was very brave, letting Small in the water without floats or me. Tbh, I think putting floats on him would be a mistake if I wasn’t in there with him, as he’d be far more likely to be washed out to sea, as it is, if he gets too deep he gets water in his face and comes hurtling out again. This has only been a problem in the last week or so though, up until then he would never have gone in over his knees.
J got togged up to swim and her younger boy decided he wouldn’t go in so she leant Small his armbands. Didn’t seem to make him float much better and fairly soon he came out anyway, shivering. Was desperately trying to get him dry and warm as Big did similarly, tried to get her to take her suntop off and actually use her towel to get dry but she insisted on sitting on it, shivering, and was very soon into a full screamy waily meltdown fit, I think mainly because I was helping Small and not her. I thought she was capable of getting dried and dressed by herself, and he needs more help as he’s quite likely to decide he’s dry when he isn’t and then soak his clothes.
J removed herself to build a sandcastle with the boys while I tried to retrieve Big, but it was a full on 10 minute absolute loss of control. Very embarassing, and in the end I just had to get hands on and drag clothes off her and insist she do as she was told. Not helped by a seagull doing something unmentionable down my back and on her towel, which really overloaded her sensory wise.
Hohum. Once she was dressed and warmed up a bit she recovered herself and started apologising, but was quite surprised that J was still happy to arrange another meetup after all that! We’re going swimming together Thurs afternoon – will be interesting to see how Small manages now in a pool. And might be able to get Big’s left arm sorted for her crawl 🙂
Home and a quiet afternoon with yet again far too much screen time. I did require them to do some reading as well, and eventually sent them to bed with books. Small has finally finished You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum!
and Big finished two library books yesterday. So I think a library trip is in order today, we’re getting closer to the end of the Questseekers challenge, and I would like them to finish it as this library actually does a presentation ceremony 🙂
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