A week of accomplishments

This week, I will be posting my blogs in the evening since Eli has soccer each morning at 9:00. Yes, that’s AM! Two months ago when I enrolled him in soccer, he seemed excited and I thought, “Oh, that sounds like fun. What a great idea.” Now that it starts tomorrow, our attitudes have changed somewhat.

I was reminded this morning how difficult it is to get Eli out of bed when he really doesn’t want to get up. So, I have the challenge of getting him up and dressed, and then add to that the challenge of getting Georgia up, dressed and fed, and getting us all out the door by 8:30 in the morning. For five days in a row! Good lord, what was I smoking when I signed us up for this?

I think it had something to do with the fact that this is the Challenger Sports British Soccer Camp. So the fact that I get to see hot, sweaty British guys is motivation to get myself and my kids out of bed each morning. As well as the joy my son will get from soccer, of course.

Last week was full of accomplishments. Eli passed swimming lessons. Woo hoo!! We were all thrilled that Eli completed almost every requirement. I hadn’t gone to the lessons the first part of the week because I didn’t want to get Georgia out in the heat, but we all went on Eli’s last day to watch him.

Eric told me that I would be so proud of him because he finally started dunking his head underwater and paying attention to the teacher. This did take some bribing on Eric’s part. Each day after the lesson, they walked in the door with either a candy bar, a pop or a doughnut. Bribery works like a charm!

Unfortunately, on the last day of swimming lessons, Eli was so excited to have the whole family there that I don’t think he looked at his teacher once during the lesson. He was more interested in giving us a few shout outs. “Sissy, look at me!!!”

You can see from the picture that Eli is the only one not looking at his teacher, and in the other photo, Georgia is quite relaxed watching her brother swim.

Eli did manage to dunk his head. Yippee! However, I knew we were in trouble when about half way through the lesson, he started yelling, “Daddy! Daddy! I need to go potty!” Oh crap. Eric just said, “Can you wait? Your lesson is almost over.” No response from Eli, but he didn’t mention it again.

After the lesson was over, Eli got out, grabbed his certificate and sauntered over to us. I almost shouted in joy when I read that Eli was ready for Level 2. While I was looking over the certificate, Eric hustled Eli into the bathroom, but Eli informed him that he “already went a little bit in the pool and didn’t need to go anymore.” Oh well. I’m sure they shock the pool regularly, right?

Georgia had her own accomplishments this week, too. I started teaching her sign language a few months ago because I read that it diminishes temper tantrums when your baby is able to sign what they want. Eli’s temper tantrums after he turned one were legendary, and I’m really not looking forward to repeating those with Georgia.

So far, we’re doing well. She knows “milk,” “more,” “mommy,” and “thank you,” which usually lapses into her blowing kisses, but she’s getting the idea. I know she understands my signs, too. Unfortunately she still laughs at me when I sign or say “no.” We’ve got to work on that!

Georgia’s other accomplishment this week was her discovery of the air conditioning vents. I think we can thank her brother for that one. The other day I caught her plunking crayons down the vent like it was a piggy bank. And today I woke up and found a half-eaten cookie sticking out of the vent in the family room. (see photo) I just sighed and shook my head. I’m not quite sure what to do about that.

And my accomplishments? Well, I bought shoes. I managed to only lock us out of the house once last week. And I successfully scaled a fence.