Past Few Days

It has been a few days since I have posted. My evenings have been consumed with other things and there really isn't time during the day to post. E finished his week of swimming today. Next session starts on July 6th and he will move up to Beginner 1. That is the class he started in this week...so hopefully he feels more ready for it. He did really well this week. Each day he got better...which is the point, right? By the end of the week, he was able to jump in and swim to the steps. When he tries to do his arms and legs together, he gets a little wiggly. So he doesn't move forward a whole lot when he is squirming all over the place. But he is loving it! When the teacher was working with someone else, he would jump off the steps and try to swim back. The other day, he and I played "Olympeics" (as he called it) outside while the younger two slept. It was fun...first we did soccer, then football, baseball, mountain climbing and finally lacrosse. We had a few breaks in between where we would sit in the swing set fort and chat. He really does like his alone time with me or his dad. I am realizing that his love language is quality time. He has a whole new attitude when he gets some alone time with us. I have been struggling this week with keeping him busy, though. He didn't do real well with playing with his, so if I wasn't doing something with him, he was more or less yelling or running around in the house. Something for me to figure out and work on with him.

Lately I have been letting J take a nap in a big boy bed, his brothers. Well, today I put him to bed for his nap. After about 10 minutes I could hear him doing something in his room. I opened the door to find that he had pulled about 15 wooden slats out of the window blinds and had them piled on the bed. He was a little shocked when I opened the door as he always is when he gets caught in the act...with his usually surprised "What?" I was a little irritated because it takes some time to put each individual wooden blind back because you have to weave it through two pieces of thread. I told him that he would have to sleep in his crib for this nap and he said, "But I didn't get out of bed!" Very true! He seems needy to me lately...wanting to be held a lot. I am starting to wonder if he is getting jealous of L because he is getting more mobile. I am not sure...I want to be sure to not ignore it, though. I don't want him to fall in the "middle" child trap.

Last night we had a really big lightning and thunder storm. Probably the worst one I have ever seen. It lasted for a few hours. I couldn't fall asleep for some reason, so I was up watching it until about 1:30. The lightning was continuous with the thunder right on top of the flashes. It was like watching the finale of a fireworks show! At 2:30, J walked in the room and said it hurt his ears...I wish you could hear him say the word because he says it so cute...So after that, both E and J were up for a little bit. We talked about the storm and I had to find a flashlight for them because during the storm their fish tank light stopped working, therefore, they lost their night light. It was definitely a crazy storm and one to remember. Mike was a little upset because his garden was damaged from the winds. Some of the plants that were about to produce their "goods" were blown over. I tried to repair a few this morning for him...we will see if it works!