Look Mom, No Hands!

Drew is in another round of swimming lessons right now that occur only on Saturday mornings. I'm sometimes reluctant to put him in the Saturday-only classes because I wonder if he loses anything he's gained in the week downtime, but it was the only option for classes for him this time, so it's what we went with. Last week he had no class because of a triathlon in town that was using the pool, so yesterday it had been two weeks since he'd been in the pool. It was also, however, parent observation day. So as I sat on the edge of the pool watching Drew I think he was determined to show me that he had no problem retaining his water skills from week to week.

After some assisted practice swims with the forward and backward stroke, Drew was ready to show off. His teacher had each of the kids float on their back. Drew is the youngest in the class (again) and the older boys are much stronger swimmers than he is, so the teacher typically has to support Drew during his back float. Not this time though. As I looked on through my camera lens, I realized his teacher had removed his hands from supporting Drew and my baby boy was actually still floating. I was so glad he had chosen parent observation day to do this for the first time and I could tell him right after how proud I was of him.

Drew still has plenty of work to do on improving his strokes in the water (as you can see in the video) but he's improving so much.

Here's a few more pictures I took during Drew's lessons yesterday.

Waiting his turn on the wall.

Practicing freestyle with the noodle for support.

Another pic on the wall.

Drew had some very red eyes to show for all his underwater retrievals of these diving sticks during class.

I'm pretty sure Drew could spend the entire 30 minutes of his lesson jumping in the water, climbing the ladder, and jumping in again. To say he loves jumping in the water might be the biggest understatement of the year.

Summer Swimming

Drew just completed another round of swim lessons this morning and he's improving so much! We're so proud of our little fishy...well, technically he is a Seal now, not a fishy, but you know what I mean. These lessons were 4 days a week for 2 weeks and were perfectly timed before preschool. As always, he loved his teacher, listened well, and displayed no fear whatsoever.

Here's some pictures and short videos I took on parent observation day and the last day of class.

Let's get this class started--last one in's a rotten egg!


Here's Drew demonstrating the backfloat. He seems to be more comfortable swimming on his back in general.


I love this picture. His poor teacher. Could my child look more spastic?


Splashing it up with the other kids as they kick on the wall.


Drew working on kicking on his back using the kickboard for flotation. We have to work on his kicking form!

Drew practicing his underwater bobs.

Drew and one of his classmates looking underwater for their rings.

Drew is always so happy in the warming pool.

My little swimmer all wrapped up

On the last day of class they usually show the kids water rescue equipment, practice with life jackets, and then have some fun on the slides and diving boards.

Here's Drew going down the slide with the junior lifeguard.

Drew was the youngest in his class and yet, the only one, who would jump off the diving board without holding the teacher's hand. Here he is preparing.

And...his jump!

Drew & Elmo

Drew is very much a creature of habit. He is not very much of a morning person. I used to drive myself crazy trying to get the boy to eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. He much preferred to snuggle on the couch with Curious George and his blankets and drink his milk. Eventually, as he got more into Sesame Street and the Wonder Pets, he started asking to watch "one of my shows" when he woke up. While I don't relish the idea of him watching a ton of TV, this is often the only time of the day that he does watch something on TV, and so I gave in. So now, most mornings, his routine consists of getting himself and the buddies situated on the couch, requesting his milk, and informing Mommy which show he would like to watch.

Thanks to the wonders of DVR, we have a handful of episodes of Sesame Street and the Wonder Pets ready for viewing at a moment's notice. Occasionally we drop one or two and try to enter a new one into the mix. After several weeks of watching the "counting monsters" episode of Sesame Street at least 5 times a week, Drew became enamored with a newly recorded episode about Rosita and Zoe's playdate. Included after the playdate portion of the episode is Elmo leading the viewers through "Elmo Says," a "get your body moving" type segment. Not surprisingly, Drew loves this. If he is still in the middle of eating breakfast when the episode gets to this part, Drew quickly grabs the remote and presses pause so he won't miss out on participating.

Anyway, all that is a very long buildup for Drew and his Elmo video. Hope you think it's as cute as I do. My favorite part of the video: when Elmo says to wiggle and as Drew is wiggling he exclaims that "This one is a hard one Mommy."

Cute Drew Stuff...Xmas edition

A collection of cute Drew stuff from our holiday trip to Las Vegas...

******************************************************************

Around 5:00 one evening Drew approached Grandma in the kitchen and asked what she was making for dinner. Grandma replied that she was not making dinner yet, but instead was making some snacks (We observe cocktail and appetizer hour pretty regularly at Mom & Dad's). This did not seem to satisfy Drew as he responded: "Why are you not making dinner?"

******************************************************************

On Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, before we began the present-opening, Drew harnessed his excitement over it being almost time to open presents by picking up present after present after present and showing them to Uncle Johnny. As John sat in the recliner next to the tree, Drew picked up each present and said "Uncle Johnny, look at this one." "Uncle Johnny, see this present?" He occasionally would point out the color of the bows or Santa or other pictures on the wrapping paper. We were also impressed with his ability to recognize people's names on the tags. He, of course, recognized the letters of his own name, but he also started being able to tell Uncle Johnny when presents were for Grandma (G), Katie (K), and he'd occasionally guess a few others correctly. It just cracked us up that simply picking up and showing off the presents to Uncle Johnny amused Drew for so long.

Drew points out the green bow on this present to Uncle Johnny


******************************************************************
Aunt Katie got Drew the Melissa & Doug Band in a Box gift set for Christmas, which included a kazoo and harmonica. As you can see, he didn't catch right on to playing them, but was highly amused by others giving them a try. Uncle Johnny eventually taught Drew to play the harmonica from one side to the other, which provoked lots of giggles again.

******************************************************************

One morning before breakfast Drew and Daddy were playing with a deck of cards. The night before Grandma had taught Drew the basic card game of Red beats Black, so he was sort of in tune with paying attention to the shapes on the card. Daddy tried teaching Drew about hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. The hearts and diamonds were easy, but clubs and spades were a little more difficult. As Daddy asked Drew about what number of hearts Drew had on the card he was holding, Drew looked at his 9 of hearts and said, instead of 9, "Look at all these hearts Daddy!" A little while later Drew was holding the 10 of spades. He said "10 Daddy." Daddy looked at the card and told Drew "Oh, you're right Drew, that shape's a tough one." So instead of saying spades, Drew exclaimed that his card had "10 tough ones."

******************************************************************

Drew served as the caretaker (and sometimes policeman) of the Christmas lights at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Each morning, before I could convince him to go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, or get the newspaper, Drew's first job was turning on the big Christmas tree. As soon as he started to see the sun set in the afternoon, he would run to retrieve the remote controls that my parents' outside lights were connected to. And whenever we were getting ready to go somewhere, Drew happily ran around to all the different switches and turned the Christmas lights in the house off.

Drew would get very upset when cell phone chargers or laptops were occupying outlets that window candles were supposed to use. He voiced his displeasure to whoever owned the offending cell phone or computer.

The best example of Drew's Christmas Light policing came on New Year's Day. Daddy had taken Drew to the theme park inside Circus Circus where they enjoyed junk food, multiple rides on the bumper cars ("Hit #15 Daddy!"), the merry go round, and the pirate ship (which I don't even like and can't believe he was brave enough for). Anyway, it was after 4:30 by the time they returned to my parents' house, which meant it was dark enough that my mother had turned on the outside Christmas lights already. As soon as they pulled in the driveway, Bill reported that Drew asked in a very accusing tone "Who turned on these Christmas lights? Daddy, I will find out who turned these Christmas lights on."

A few pictures from Drew & Daddy's adventures at Circus Circus

Drew on carousel

Drew patiently waiting for the bumper cars to start

Drew enjoying some cookies & cream flavored ice cream dots

******************************************************************

A few days after Christmas, one of Mommy's gifts arrived a little late from Amazon. While Mommy was very happy with Aunt Katie's purchase of her perfume gift set, my excitement could not be matched by Drew's absolute thrill with popping the bubble wrap that had surrounded the perfume. I snapped a few photos, but they just don't do his excitement justice, so here's two videos. In the first, Drew goes with the traditional method of hand popping the bubbles.

Then he got an idea and began jumping on the bubble wrap.

Drew definitely provided lots of laughs for everyone during the trip. Still a lot more pictures to come. Stay tuned.

Drew's New Trick

A few weeks ago, Drew started talking about doing tricks. He would get down on his hands and knees and then point one of his legs up in the air and call that his trick. I assumed this was something he learned at his new school, although, to be honest, I wasn't quite sure what exactly his trick was supposed to be. So I eventually asked his teacher. She explained that sometimes during afternoon circle time they go around the circle, sing a little song with each child's name and the child does a trick. So it seemed that Drew was attempting, without much success, to imitate his friend's somersaults. I tried to help Drew figure out the mechanics of a somersault, but he kept saying "Mommy, you do a trick." I thought maybe if he saw me do one he'd grasp the idea of it better, but as I tucked my head into my chest and felt a twinge of pain in my neck, I quickly realized my somersaulting days are over. Fortunately, Drew allowed me (without demonstration) to help him tuck his head and flip his legs over to the point that he started somersaulting on his own. Here's a few shots of Drew's newest trick from our recent visit to Grandma and Grandpa's (more of that visit coming in another post).

I had to include the video too, because it's just not the same without the song. Usually Drew won't even attempt his trick until you've started singing the song. He showed off his new trick so much for Grandma & Grandpa and their friends who came over for dinner one night that he's nearly perfected it (though in the video it took him two tries).