23 February 2008 8:15 pm
Bye Bye Weekend Naps
We may have seen the last of weekend naps for Dylan. Last Sunday was the first day that Dylan successfully had no nap. He'd had a few days without a nap previously, but they all ended with either Dylan asleep at 6 p.m. on the way home from school or a very-difficult-to-deal-with Dylan by bedtime. On Monday, school was closed, and Dylan and Andrea were home with Geoff. It too was a no-nap day for Dylan. In spite of swimming class to tire him out today, Dylan resisted a nap. Tonight, I didn't think of the missed nap until about 7:40 p.m. as I was reading Andrea her stories before bed, and I could hear what sounded like a melt-down in the hallway.
Good news, bad news. The bad news is that I don't have that down-time to be productive and recharge in the middle of the day anymore. We are trying to convince Dylan that he needs to play quietly and independently while Andrea is napping, but he still needs help periodically. The good news is that Dylan falls asleep while reading stories at night again. So, there's no struggle and both kids were asleep a few minutes after 8:00 p.m. That means that I actually have a few hours of quiet down-time at the end of the day.
Dylan continued to take a nap at school this week, which is good for him. He slept for a solid two hours there still. So, while he isn't quite ready to give up naps totally, he may do so 2 out of 7 days. It will be interesting to see what happens when grandparents come to visit...
23 February 2008 1:52 pm
Jumping In
Today at swim class, Andrea did not want to wear the float belt. I didn't push it, and she got to demonstrate some other skills without it. She has taken a liking to riding on the pool noodle by stradling it. This supposedly improves the ability to balance in the water and can indicate whether a child is ready to swim. Regardless, Andrea was enjoying it for a while unlike last week.
At the start of class, Andrea wasn't really ready to swim. She refused to do the first number of activities: climb out of the pool, sit on the side of the pool and kick, and even jumping in. During the class Andrea slowly participated more. By the end of class, Andrea was finally ready to really swim. There is 15 minutes after our class prior to the start of the next class, so we always get a bit of free swim. During this time today, Andrea demonstrated that she can jump in from the side of the pool all by herself with no float belt. She sinks much further and I believe that she touches the bottom of the pool; the pool is marked as three feet deep. She then surfaces but needs a bit of help getting her face out of the water. She needed a few reminders to keep her mouth closed under water, but not once did she come up choking. After the first unassisted jump, I was waiting to see what her reaction was. And it was to reach toward the side of the pool and ask to do it again.
A new session of swim classes starts next week. Andrea got her report card this week, and it is never clear exactly what level she is in. Her swim teacher keeps asking when Andrea will be three, and I have to remind the teacher that Andrea isn't yet two. So, we're going to be in the same swim class for another year and a couple of months.
22 February 2008 9:34 pm
Nail Polish
It all started on Wednesday at the Scholastic book fair at Dylan's school. He saw a book that was stereo-typically for girls and he pointed that out to Samuel's dad, "this book is for girrrlllls." Then, Dylan something attached to the book piqued Dylan's curiosity.
What's that?, he asked me.
That's nail polish.
What's it for?
Painting fingernails.
I want some.
Okay. I'll buy you some. Not that book, but I'll buy you some nail polish.
I want green nail polish.
I'll see what I can find at the store.
And, so at Target today, I picked up some nail polish that seemed to be for kids rather than adults. That also involved a brief conversation with a woman who had her two daughters with her looking at the same products:
If I want to buy nail polish for a four-year old, am I looking at the right stuff?
Yes. A four-year old girl would be thrilled with that nail polish. If you're looking for make-up sets, they might carry some of those in the toy section with the dress-up clothes.
Thanks.
So, I was prepared for when Dylan asks about nail polish again. If ever. And good thing, too. Within less than an hour, in the car ride home today, Dylan asked whether I had nail polish for him to paint his finger nails. Why, of course I do, Dylan! And after dinner, we painted his finger nails. All except the thumb that he still sucks. I have bad memories of having bad tasting nail polish on my thumb that I sucked as a child. Andrea had two finger nails painted too, since it looked like fun. Dylan was first disappointed that he didn't have green nail polish. But, I managed to convince him that there was green glitter in one of the containers. There were three containers of nail polish, all somewhat sparkly, but without much real color -- one was clear (with green, blue, and yellow glitter among other colors), one with a pink tint, and one with a purple tint.
I forgot to buy nail polish remover, so let's hope that Dylan doesn't need to have it off immediately.
3 February 2008 8:40 pm
Swimming!
One of my favorite times of the week is swimming with Andrea. If you missed it, there was a short video with clips of Andrea's swim class two weeks ago. Well, I sure wish there was a video camera focused on Andrea in the pool yesterday. Words just won't do it justice. The swim instructor suggested that we can try a swim belt with Andrea. This is the modern day version of the "bubble" that I remember swimming with as a kid; I also remember taking it off, swimming in front of my mom and nearly giving her a heart attack. Initially, Andrea was hesitant to put it on. However, I managed to trick her and then she had a blast once she became comfortable with it. Andrea was able to "swim" all by herself with it! Yes, she motored around the pool totally unassisted from me. Now, she's not yet skilled enough where I'd be more than a foot away from her, but it was still quite amazing to me. Okay, maybe not yet olympic material, but I deserve to be a proud mom.
Also amazing is the fact that Andrea finally has a new tooth. Her lower right eye tooth broke through the surface last Sunday. We're now up to 12 teeth. She is still missing the upper right lateral incisor. The last of her molars appeared sometime last September. Or maybe it was October. It seems that we've been awaiting the eye tooth for a while.
