Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Red Fish - Aug. 2011

My girls are in love with swimming.  The lessons are a great activity for them and they continue to make progress.  I love knowing that I can provide them with an activity they love and excel at.  There are so many other things that are hard that I would hate to take away something that is working so well.  The downside is that - swimming lessons in the winter drive me crazy.  Trying to get the girls dressed three times before noon is not something I look forward to.  We have to be dressed with coats, shoes and socks for the drive over.  Then they need to be changed into their wetsuits.  Then they must be redressed with hats to cover wet heads for the ride home.  Then, of course, they need a bath later.   The multiple costume changes are not the worst part.  The dreaded locker room is the worst part.

As soon as we get into the locker room my blood pressure skyrockets. Often one of the girls is crying because their lesson is over and they weren't ready to get out.  It never fails that someone tries to touch some truly nasty surprise discarded on the locker room floor.  My germaphobia goes into overdrive as I try to not freak out. I try to dress both of their wet little bodies as quickly as possible and divert any conversation away from the people around us.  These comments range from "Hey!  That lady with the white hair is nakie!"  to an innocent (but unfailingly LOUD) question about the body of someone changing in the locker room.  These questions have been known to turn my scalp purple with embarrassment. If by some miracle I am able to remain calm as I shove on shoes and socks we manage to leave with a shred of dignity.  If I let the stress get to me, it stresses the girls.  Then we ultimately have a tantrum as I try to shield their wet hair from the elements and get them into the car.  If we have a tantrum over carseat buckling - the world ends.

I'm hoping our locker-room situation will improve soon.  I convinced the manager to give me a code for the children's private dressing room.  They didn't want to give it to me since we aren't "members" but I convinced her to give it to me for all of the members sake.  I'm sure the ladies in the locker room will appreciate our absence.

 I've been taking a stack of books and markers and trying to really use the time alone with each kid while the other is taking their lesson.  I draw with them and read to them and teach them new songs.  It has helped eliminate their irritation at sitting on the side of the pool.  Plus I feel like I'm really getting something done during swim time.

Red Fish with her speech therapist

We've scaled back our speech therapy attendance last month.  This made me so happy but as soon as we scaled back, we had a big drop in intelligablity.  Red Fish had passed off dozens of three syllable words over the summer.  When the speech therapist brought them back out, Red Fish couldn't say a single one of them.  I was way more crushed than I should have been.  I took it personally because we should have kept practicing them and we have been slacking on speech lately.  It's so hard to get in enough time on everything.  After a few weeks of practice, Red Fish has made some awesome progress.  I just have to remember that this process is two steps forward, one step back.  She is a totally different little girl than she was a year and a half ago.  I just need to keep perspective.

The girls reading at the library

We've been going to the library a lot lately.  I usually let the girls each get five or six books. They always get at least one Fancy Nancy book, a few Clifford the Big Red Dogs, a princess book and something random. They cry every week when I take the books back.  They get very attached.  Hopefully it will stop being so traumatic because overall the library has been a good addition to our weekly schedule.  The girls love books and it has been nice having so many new ones around.
 
 
One of my goals for next year is to fit in more music.  We've been doing pretty well lately.  Now that I have finished up a huge kit of Family Home Evening lessons to try and make that run more smoothly, I think I will concentrate on more music things with the girls.  I made a few games for their favorite songs and they've learned almost all of the simple nursery rhymes and songs we have little books of.  We take those to the pool often.  They are good for practicing speech as well.  We have about 50 of them (from waterford.org) and the girls like that they are short and easy to remember.  That makes it sound like I am forcing them to memorize them or something but really they just do it because they love it.  It might be that Red Fish just really loves it and New Fish loves to copy her.  It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

My friend Annie came and cooked a bunch of freezer meals with me the other day.  We zipped them up in her food saver and I've been preparing them every night for dinner.  It seems to be working well for us.  Dinner and housework are almost impossible for me to keep up on.  They are my nemesis.  I'm hoping that my new plan of making everything for a month in one day and freezing it will help with the planning, expense and time management all involved in keeping up with healthy meals.  The food saver really helps keep them tasting good as well.  (Hopefully I'm getting one for Christmas.)  Having Annie over to show me her quick meals was a huge help.  You know how everyone has those few standby meals that taste good and are easy to prepare?  I need yours.  Please send them to me to add to my stash.  Explain them to me like I'm a complete idiot.  When it comes to cooking- I am.  

We haven't done half of the Christmas things I thought we would.  Life is too crazy and the cold keeps us inside.  So we just keep moving on.  Sometimes I think we are trying to do to much and sometimes it feels like I can put enough effort in to be the kind of mom I want to be.  And that is a few of the things that are rattling around in my brain.