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Shedding the Winter Coat
Happy 4th to everybody out there! I’m sorry I can’t offer you presidential candidates who would do justice to our Constitution and founding principles. Even so, we are so grateful to live in this country.
Aside from our routine feedings and nappings, we have been busy with summer things. Avey and Carver had their last swimming lesson on Friday. We decided that we would all go to see how they did on their final day. I went ahead with Avey, Carver, and Merritt, while Kira stayed behind with Hakan, who wanted to dawdle. I dropped Carver and Avey at their respective locker rooms and then headed to the observation area. To my surprise, I turned to look for Kira, and who was standing at the stairs, but Carver! He had apparently decided that he did not want to participate in his last lesson, claiming to be scared. We encouraged him and bribed him, but he would have none of it. Because he had done all preceding lessons so willfully, we finally let it go and he goofed around in the bleachers with Hakan.
Avey did great on her last lesson! She built up the endurance and courage to swim underwater to a goal, so that she could move up to the next skill level before the time was up. We are so proud that she has been pushing herself out of her comfort zone, and doing so well when she does.
I made a pretty big move this week, too. I have been toying with the idea of doing something drastic about my continually receding hairline, but never had the guts to do it during the school year. I worried that my head would have some strange dent in it or something, so now that I have no students until August, I buzzed my hair to see what I had to work with.
I don’t know that it looks “good” exactly, but at my age and with my genes, I figure I should cut my losses and focus on looking presentable. My head seems to be an okay shape, so I shaved it and am working on getting it tanned to match the rest of my skin. I figure I’ll give it a few weeks, and if it’s really not better than my sad balding hairstyle, I’ll try it out for a semester. I also am growing the beard back, so now I look sort of like a guy in prison. Maybe I’ll put up another picture of the experiment in another week or so.
Avey has been bored around the house lately. She lamented that she could not see her friends every day, and so Kira tracked down Avey’s best friend (a BOY?!?!?!??), and arranged a play [non-]date. She was looking forward to it for days, and then the time finally came! She had fun, but was disappointed that her friend’s little brother (Carver’s age) bothered them so much, trying to get in on their fun. I think half of Avey’s desire to go play was to escape Carver, but it wasn’t much of an escape. All things considered, Avey and Carver have made great progress getting along this summer, it’s just that they should see other people.
Seems like every week I note how much more interactive Merritt is. That remains true this week also. As long as he is fed, rested, and has had a bowel movement, he is a smiley guy.
He is also working hard on making adorable vocalizations. He has come close to laughing a few times. Right now, it seems like he has the breathing down right for a laugh, but he just can’t quite figure out what to do with the breathing and the wide grin. Hopefully he’ll have it down by the time his Nana comes to visit next month.
He is also kicking like nobody’s business. I just started laying him on his little mat on the floor that has a place to hang things above him. We found that the other kids enjoyed kicking around at the poles from which the toys hang, so that they could watch them bounce and swing in the air. Merritt caught on pretty quickly last night with his little legs buzzing up and down like the needle on a sewing machine. I’ll try to catch that on video soon.
Thanks for reading! We’ll keep the updates flowing.