Swimming June 27, 2013

Summer is in full here, and that means it’s hot and when you’re outside you want to be by a pool.  John and I were both really adamant that Hayden learn to swim this year, so we’ve got both kids in private lessons once a week.  Hayden has been in swimming lessons many times before, but it’s always been in a group setting, and he’s never really made much progress (I think the main reason being he spends 75% of the time sitting waiting for the other kids, amounting to about 7 minutes of actual instruction).

They have a nice young man as an instructor, Michael.  I thought this would be really good for Hayden as he seems more responsive to men sometimes.  I have been blown away by how much progress Hayden has made.  First of all, he is really loving the water.  He’s been taking baths again lately (was really into showers there for a while), and he’ll lay on his back in the bath and “float”.  Sure makes washing his hair a heck of a lot easier, too!  In his last lesson he progressed to actually swimming strokes as well, as opposed to just kicking around the water on a noodle.  It’s been really exciting to watch his progress.  We told him that if he was actually swimming (no life jacket, etc) by the end of the summer we would take him to Great Wolf Lodge as a treat.  I think that has given him a bit of incentive, but he also seems to be enjoying it and taking pride in his achievements.

Layla is also progressing, but she is also crying a lot during her lesson still.  She’s getting more comfortable floating on her back and loves kicking around the pool in a noodle.  I’m happy with any progress she makes because IMO she’s still a bit on the young side to expect her to hold her own in the water without floaties.

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Adventurous Hayden June 14, 2011

Hayden went to gymnastics camp for one week/four days in June.  Some other kids in our neighborhood had signed up so I thought it was a good opportunity to try a summer day camp for him when I could get some assistance with the carpooling.  He took gymnastics classes earlier in the year, about which he was lukewarm.  I would say he was similarly lukewarm about gymnastics camp as the week went on.  It was from 9 -1, and that is probably a big chunk of time for a 3 year old.  He would have rather stayed home and played trains (the boy is obsessed by trains currently), and I couldn’t seem to get him to understand that it was either gymnastics camp or preschool/day care since I was working while he was at camp.

On the last day they put on a performance that the parents could come watch.  I got to see Hayden doing all the different apparatuses (trampoline, bars, beam, vault.  It was really cute.  He has always been a very cautious little guy, so I was glad to see there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.  The owner of the gym said that he had not wanted to do some of the things at the beginning of the week but he had worked up the nerve over time so she was glad to see his progress.  Since camp, I have noticed that he is much more adventurous now on playground equipment.  It was all we could do to get him on playground equipment prior to camp, and now he climbs right up and seems to be confident using every part he can find.

He also took a couple of weeks of swimming classes recently.  Again it was hard to know how much he really liked the class.  Unfortunately, we were taking him to the Monon Center, which has a huge outdoor water park he is familiar with, so whenever we went he just wanted to go out there and play, not be inside taking swim lessons.  But it was good to get him some instruction.

I want to swim to the bar and get grape juice April 9, 2010

Our main pool in Cancun at swim up bars at both ends.  Both fully staffed and fully stocked.  Perfect for me to get Cancun tropical, pina colada, mojito, Miami vice, or whatever else the barmen would conduct for me.  But of course this blog isn’t about me.  I wasn’t the only one that was interested in swimming to the bars…

Hayden loved the swimming pool.  He probably spent about 3 to 4 hours a day in it!   Of course his idea of swimming is daddy carrying him around, but it’s only 2 so I’ll let that ride.  He loved doing jumps off the edge, playing with the “waterfall” (where one pool overlapped into the other), and of course swimming to the bar to get grape juice!  We’d be swimming and I’d ask him what he wants to do, and give him some choices.  He nearly always chose swim to the bar and get grape juice.  He even had his favorite bars based off the barmen and the quality (and quantity) of grape juice!

The swim up bars had these giant stools that had a brown, black and Grey pattern.  Hayden quick pointed out that they looked like giant cookies and he wanted to sit on the giant cookie!    There was nothing about the bar he didn’t like!  Also gave me chance to grab a quick drink while he was sipping his grape juice!  He got to know the barmen and they would get his grape juice ready for him the minute they saw him coming!

There is just one thing to think about if you ever go swimming at the Cancun Palace – Hayden drunk a lot of grape juice and everything that goes in, I guess has to come out?

Coldest July Ever! August 9, 2009

July in Indiana is warm.  Well that’s what I had learned over the last few years.  If it’s in the 80s you are lucky, more likely is half of the month will drift into the 90s when it starts to get unpleasant.  So a weekend planned at the lake is always a sure fire hit.  It’s going to warm and dry.   What a perfect time to invite over the family – hot dry weather!  Something people from England are not accustomed to (particularly when it’s basically guaranteed! right?)

So we head to Bloomington, two cars full of people (Granddad, Jean and Michelle all with us) to invade Grandpaman and Grandma G’s condo and the thermometer in the car shows 65F. Surely that’s just because it’s the morning, right?   Well if it got above 68F that day I would be very surprised.  Average this time of year about 86F.  It was the coldest high temperature on that particular day basically since records began!!  Damn English bringing their weather over here 🙂

Of course I would like to report that this did not put off the English and (I include Hayden in this, half his gene pool is from the other side of the pond) despite the weather (maybe in spite of it!  if it was too hot we might have melted) we were perfectly happy to be swimming in the lake and working on our tans (on this cold overcast day).  To be honest I’m sure it was warmer in the water than out of it – but none of the American’s were willing to try!!  Big babies 😀

Road Trip February 2, 2008

Hayden had his first road trip last weekend!! We had a 4 hour drive up to Michigan for a skiing weekend (not for Hayden yet but it won’t be long if I get my way!! :)) and stay two overnights at the Holidome. A holiday inn with a big indoor swimming pool so Kara and Hayden had somewhere cool to hang out during the day!

Hayden wasn’t over impressed with his new nighttime surroundings! We had taken his pack and play but the boy knew something was up so made enough noise that he talked himself into the grown up bed for the night. I think this was a hatched plan between mother and son if you ask me!!!! Flawlessly executed!

I got to go swimming with him for the first time. He has been on the Friday before but Kara said he just slept the whole time!! The water wasn’t as warm when I went with him so we didn’t hang around for too long. It was fun though!

The most impressive thing though was the drive back – took us about 3 and a half hours and he almost slept the whole trip!! I didn’t hear from him the whole time!! What a legend!

Swimming January 21, 2008

Friday was our first Aquababes class, which is the baby/parent swimming class we signed up for.  It was so fun!  The water was really warm, so it was really nice not to have to worry about him being too cold, particularly as he was in and out of the water a bit.  I was quite surprised because I had thought the babies would always have some sort of flotation device like floaties on or something, and I thought we would try to keep them from going under.  They actually encourage us to get our babies underwater quite a bit.  There is a reflex that babies have until they are 2 years old where when their face hits the water their throat automatically closes.  But the face has to hit the water quickly; if you are too slow in getting them underwater then the reflex doesn’t kick in.  So there were different exercises around this, like first we sat the babies on this bar on the side of the pool that was just below the surface of the water.  We counted to three and then let them fall forward into the water.  Hayden was really good about it.  It obviously caught him by surprise but he didn’t cry or anything.  (It was all at the parent’s discretion – if the parent wasn’t comfortable then they didn’t have to have the baby go underwater.  But I trusted that it was ok and of course it was.)  Then we did a bit of ‘swimming,’ holding baby under the arms to our side with him on his belly and walking him to the other side of the pool; then having his head on my shoulder with him on his back and ‘backstroking’ to the other side.  We sat them up on the side of the pool and had them fall forward into the water, similar to the first exercise but they were completely out of the pool.  Then there were a few other games and activities.  It was really fun and we did a lot!  He was exhausted by the end.  He hadn’t had a great morning nap – what a surprise since we have such napping troubles in general!  So I was glad he was in such a good mood for the whole hour, and then at the very end when he started getting tired I was not surprised.  He was still good and didn’t really cry until he was separated from me for a short time for one of the exercises.  He just cuddled against me at the end and made lots of mumbly noises like he does when he’s really tired.

Oh yeah, and one of his buddies from day care is in his class!  We were in the locker room getting ready for the class, and I turned around and there was Oliver and his mom!  So that was really nice.  And I talked to several of the other moms during the class and they were all really nice.  There were 8 parent/baby pairs.  For half of us it was the first time we had taken the class, so I liked that we weren’t the only new ones.

It’s been a nice but COLD weekend here.  We have a fire going today but it’s still quite cold in the family room.  We didn’t go out at all today, but yesterday we went out briefly to get groceries and lunch.  We were outside for about 3 minutes, just going from the car to Target and the restaurant, but Hayden’s poor little face got chapped from the cold.  It’s pretty much back to normal now, but it was red and rough yesterday and most of today.  He has also been suffering with his teething this weekend.  He still just has that one tooth that has broken through.  There is at least one more trying to push its way through at the moment.

Sitting up January 6, 2008

Hayden started sitting up on his own a couple of days ago!  He can sit for a few seconds before he slowly starts to fall over. 🙂  He also holds his bottles!  He is given a little bit of water after his solid food, and he just grabs the bottle and holds it himself.  Apparently when other people give him milk in a bottle he does it then, too.

We are deep into sleep training.  He is doing really well at night.  We’ve had to let him cry it out a little over night when we know he can’t be hungry, and (touch wood) he seems to be catching on.  Naps are taking a bit more work at this point, but that is natural (according to my book).  We are implementing ‘cry it out’ during nap time too, and he is somewhat coming along but he seems awfully stubborn at times!  I think it is slowly coming together, but it will just take some time.  And if ever it does come together, he’ll go off to day care for three days in a row and everything might come undone! 😉  Right, I guess that means I need to give up work!!! 😛 (It’s worth a try, hey?!)

Hayden had to go to the doctor on Thurs because his skin was struggling a bit.  We found out he has eczema at his last well child visit last month, and the doctor gave us some things to try to heal it up.  It has been up and down since that visit, and on Wednesday he developed a rash all along his back so we decided it was time to be seen again.  He has a medium case of eczema, with rashes on all of the creases of his skin (legs, arms, armpits, neck).  He’s on an antibiotic and a medium steroid cream.  It is looking a lot better already.  They weighed him with his clothes on and he was 19 lbs 8 oz!!!!  I suppose that would equate to somewhere around 19 lbs without clothes.  There’s no stopping his growth!

I’m really excited because we signed up today for Aquababes, which is a parent/baby swimming class.  I have been on the waiting list for only a couple of days, but I didn’t think we would be able to be in the class until March.  They said he has to be 6 months, and he isn’t 6 months until Feb 3.  The class starts in two weeks.  They must not be that strict about the age, because they took his birthdate so they know he is a couple of weeks shy of 6 mos.  John and I decided if we could just get him signed up somehow they would never question him being old enough once they saw him.  He certainly looks older than 6 mos!  So anyway, I ordered him a swimsuit online today.  There aren’t any in the shops at the moment.  Next I need to find some swimming diapers.  Hopefully there will be some at Target even though it’s out of season.  Otherwise, I might need to implement the help of my Floridian friends!  It’s always swimming season in Florida!