Life-Saving Day 2009
Except for Snuggles, who has had to miss his lessons this week, they all love the water, they love to swim, and the love their teacher, Myrna! She is such an amazing swim teacher and has been teaching children (including my siblings when they were younger!) to swim for well over 50 years! She is the best teacher EVER and we are so blessed to have her here.
When Captain was almost 5 years old, he was not speaking very well at all, and we were looking at the possibility of him needing speech therapy. Myrna heard about this, called me, and told me that she would like to give Captain some private swimming lessons. By the end of the 2 week session, he was speaking. It was amazing. I guess the cross patterning of swimming helps develop the part of the brain used for Auditory Processing. In fact, last summer, since we were again working on his Auditory Processing Challenge, this time with a tutor for reading, I had him in six weeks of lessons at the suggestion of his tutor and his progress with reading during that time was incredible!
Anyhow, yesterday was day 7 of the 8 swimming lessons in the 2 week session, also known as “Life-saving Day.”
On “Life-Saving Day” Myrna works on teaching the children a swim-survival-safety technique that she has developed over her 50 year career. “It is based on a controlled method of teaching infants/babies to roll to their backs after submersion and to be able to sustain a floating position until help arrives. This bridges the “danger” gap until the baby/child is old enough to learn to swim and take breaths on their own. This method has been credited for saving many toddlers and children’s lives around water.”
All the children had to arrive fully dressed (with their swimsuits under their clothing) which explains further the picture of my boys on the diving board in their sweatshirts and jeans, despite the 90 degree weather. During the class Myrna taught them what they would need to do in the event that they fell into a pool, lake or any body of water.
She had the children jump into the pool, and roll onto their back into the “starfish” position. Since the girls have their class at 10am and the boys are at 11am, the girls were first, starting with Chiquita.
Just look at her floating all by herself, even with her heavy clothing, shoes and all!
Next it was Twinkle Toes’s turn.
She too did a great job of rolling over and finding her balance.
Next it was time to practice with life-jackets.
Then she taught the children how to join hands and form a circle…
They also learned the position to get into to signal “help!”
Next it was the boys turn.
Can you tell how excited they were to cool off!?!?! lol!
They too practiced the same things at the girls, but after getting a couple pictures, I was off chasing Snuggles around who wasn’t interested in watching any longer…
I was able to get a couple pictures of the much anticipated “Yankee Doodle Pony Race” at the end of the class.
Captain didn’t waste any time once he heard the word go and was in the pool!
They even got to have the race a few more times!
Thank you Myrna for blessing us with these wonderful lessons!!!
Ok, I am off to get ready for today… GRADUATION DAY!!!!
The Many Faces of Snuggles
Here are a few pictures of what my little guy was up to while I was trying to take a few pictures of his older siblings during their Life-Saving Class yesterday at swimming.
Wordless Wednesday #2 ~ Found on Facebook
Wordless Wednesday ~ Waiting for their class: Lifesaving Day
More Happy Flowers…
My girls and I were so excited to see that we are not the only ones who are decorating with Happy Flowers!!
If you haven’t yet, click on over to Elizabeth’s blog and check out her daughters new bedrooms:
I sure wish we didn’t live all the way across the country and that my girls could meet the Foss girls… Unfortunatley, for now, they can just see how they have much more in common than just Dot Dresses, and then beg “Mom, can we pleeeaaaasssseeeee go and play with those little girls???!!!”
I sure wish they could, since I would love to meet their Momma! Maybe someday… Currently all my nieces and nephews do live in Virginia! 😉
What a kick!!
Our little one has been quite active lately and growing stronger.
Just a few minutes ago Twinkle Toes was able to feel her newest sibling give her a little kick on the hand. The little one had to be persistent, but by kick #4 a big grin spread across Twinkle Toes face and she ran to tell her older brothers, who have not yet been so lucky.
It is hard to believe that this Friday will mark 20 weeks — the half way point! It is going by so fast… I still have so much to do, but yet I can hardly wait at the same time!
Photo Credit: Life Issues
Our New Nursery
Poor Snuggles has been moved around so many times this past month…
His old room is the now the new school room, so in order to start the progress of shifting everyone around, he was the first to be moved out. At first I moved his little toddler bed into a corner of our room, but then, after the boys were moved to the old school room he was moved to their old room for awhile. Had I known it wouldn’t be long till we would be painting that room I would have just left him put… He is now in the girls’ old bedroom, at least for awhile. Eventually he will move in with his older brothers.
I still have quite a bit to do to finish this room, but I won’t be doing much until I find out just what our little one is, boy or girl! (Which should be next Monday!!!)
In the meantime, here are a couple pictures of how the room looks right now, starting from the doorway and moving around the room.
My plan is to add a white crib for the baby on the other side of the window from the toddler bed, where I have a few of the baby toys right now. I do have a light brown crib which use to be Snuggles, but I am really hoping to be able to save and buy a new crib this time… I have always wanted one that wasn’t falling apart or in need of repair. We’ll see… The back up plan is to paint the one in the garage white.
I also would like to paint the rest of the furniture (toddler bed, toy box — which went with the girls’ furniture but will not fit in their room, table and chairs, and oak dresser) white to match. Right now everything is so mismatched… In fact, every piece of furniture in this room is a different color, and not in a good way! It might be a lot of work, but I think white furniture would look so nice against the Honeysuckle walls.
I took all the board books off of the girls’ bookshelf to make more room for our Picture books which had to come out of the school room. For now they are in baskets in Snuggles room, which is working out great. I have one big basket at the foot of his bed and two more on the dresser, and I plan to rotate the books. He is loving having easy access to them.
I also set back up his infant bouncer, which he loved so much! He still fits in it just fine, though he can’t quite move it like he did in the past ! 😉
I also am not quite sure which direction I will go with decorating. The walls will stay the same color, though they do need quite a bit of touching up… For now I hung a few Jungle Animals from my Aunt and a little sign I found a couple years ago at a local boutique. Snuggles especially loves the “raffe” above his changing table and is constantly signing giraffe
I still have a lot to do in this room, eventually, but for now it should work just fine.
My Daybook ~ August 3rd
FOR TODAY: August 3rd, 2009
Outside my Window… it’s sunny and a bit smoky. The thunderstorms over the weekend started quite a few fires in our corner of the state.
I am thinking… that I have a very smart 2 year old! Snuggles figured out that the only way he would get out of swimming lessons would be to get sick, so last night he came down with the flu. He was also very good about sharing, at least with me. I am afraid it is going to be a very long week.
I am thankful… for my washing machine. Very thankful!
From the school room… I really need to take a couple pictures of our new school room, don’t I?! This past Friday Marci came back over and we hung a few more pictures on the walls as well as a little shelf for me to use for the various seasons and feasts. It is a very FULL but organized little room. I guess we will see just how well it functions in a couple weeks when we begin school.
Living the Liturgical year at Home… I compiled a list of posts from the archives at Catholic Cuisine for the various feast days in August. This week I am planning on doing a little something extra for the feasts of St. Dominic (perhaps make Cherries Jubilee while the children color this picture ) and St. John Vianney (Illuminated Inks Coloring Page).
I am creating… a daily schedule for this coming school year, and trying to keep it realistic.
I am going… to swimming lessons despite Snuggles being sick. Today I dropped the older four off and drove around with my little guy for an hour and a half in the cool, air-conditioned, car. Only three more days…
I am wearing… my pretty red and white apron after being inspired by Jen’s recent post on The Simple Delight of an Apron! I was also thrilled this morning when I found out that I had won the Catholic Mom’s Ultimate Embroidered Gift Set and will soon have another lovely apron to add to my current two, the other being a boring Pampered Chef “standard issue denim-tie-behind-the-back apron.”
I am hoping… that the rest of my children do not catch the flu!
on the track. I love how excited my children get over toys that have been packed away for awhile!
Around the house… beautiful curtains hanging in the girls’ room! The next project will be either my kitchen cabinets or my closet and then I will be just about done with all of the de-cluttering. Oh, I can’t even imagine what that might be like…
One of my favorite things… or rather, people, would be Marci . I don’t know how I could have ever accomplished everything that has gotten done around here lately without her help!
- Swimming Lessons
- Visiting family from out of State next Saturday
A picture thought I am sharing:
Small Successes :: July 30, 2009
I survived our first week of swimming lessons and, despite a dead car battery yesterday morning — which was jump started minutes before we needed to leave by a neighbor we don’t really know and who had still been sleeping (oops!), we did not miss even one of the children’s classes. Snuggles is still not very happy to be in the pool (yeah, he SCREAMS the whole time!) but Chiquita is swimming wonderfully and was once again “diving” off the board today! Nevertheless, I am SO happy to be home this weekend knowing that I don’t have to go back until Monday!!
I made great progress (with lots of help from Hubby and my friend Marci) on our home projects this past week. I posted pictures of some of what was accomplished including:
- The Boys’ New Closet
- The Boys’ New Bedroom
- Painting the Boys’ old Room for the Girls
- The Girls’ New Bedroom
Inspired by Twinkle Toes’ Godmother, who also uses Right Start Math, I organized all of our Math supplies.
(I wrote this post yesterday afternoon, but forgot to click publish.)
Using Apostrophes Correctly
My last couple post were really bothering me… I kept wondering if I had used the correct punctuation on “Girl’s” and “Boy’s” in my post titles… They just didn’t look right. If you haven’t noticed by now, grammar has never been one of my strong points. (I even failed the placement test when I arrived at Christendom and needed to take Grammar 101… )
To show plural possession, make the noun plural first. Then immediately use the apostrophe.
It was just what I was looking for and I corrected my last couple posts… Now I know, and perhaps I’ll be able to sleep tonight! 😉
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