What You've Been Missing

We started the much anticipated and much dreaded remodel of the stairs/downstairs. It's a massive little project if that makes sense. The stairs are big, getting rid of the paneling to make the downstairs look like part of the house - not so much a huge remodel type job... and yet... what do you think I'm looking forward to the most?

Abby's first week of Summer felt like a whirlwind. She had ballet camp (can you believe the awesome attitude on her face? oh, can't recognize her? that's because she's blond again) for the week: each of the first two days she said randomly, "This was the best day of my LIFE." Miss Caroline did everyone's hair, taught them a little routine, led a craft and gave them a lot of ice cream.

She also had her first week of swim lessons since last Summer. She did amazing. I had no idea she was ready for the things they were doing and without even a fuss. She fell in love with a new best friend (name never recovered) but he was funny and she assured Steve that she loved them both the same (that was not a consolation for Steve).

Jack had his first ever swim "lesson" which actually consisted of more lesson than I ever got with Abby. When I did Abby's first mommy and me class she spent quite a bit of the time clinging to me for dear life. I suppose it is somewhat similar in that I probably had to work pretty hard to keep Abby in the pool and that was the only issue I had with Jack. He saw the kids playing soccer in the park next door and wanted to play some sort of catch game rather than stay in the pool going around in circles. He doesn't mind being dunked under the water, and he actually seemed to be grasping the blowing bubbles concept. The funniest though was when the teacher suggested I go under water to show him it's okay. He let out the biggest belly laugh, he thought it was SO funny and then whenever I tried to do it again he'd grab onto my neck (I think to try to stop me).

Week One was a lot of running around. Week Two started off with a bang with the start of Transition Kindergarten Pre-school and a doctor's visit for Jack. Abby is there all day and so far doing just fine with it. Then we run off to swim lessons with Claire which are just further reinforcing how great Abby is swimming. The goal for these almost private lessons is for Abby to be classified "pool safe"

We are slowly getting used to the longer day for Abby and I'm using my time painting for this year's Christmas Book. Believe it or not a late June painting start date does not make us feel accomplished.

I'm sleeping intermittently. Jack will sleep through the night the same night Abby suddenly has night terrors. I think she is a sleep walker. I have to remember to ask the doc how to confirm that and what besides obvious precautions I should know about it. Those nights she wakes up 4-5 times. Then she'll get that figured out and Jack will suddenly forget how to sleep.

OR both of them will sleep like sweet little logs and I will twitch and cough all night. I can most often be found doing Pilates at 1am. Actually I'm getting smarter and starting out with the exercise rather than leaving it as last resort. It's working wonders for the twitch and the mind.

Speaking of, I'd better go do that.