Reading

The wonderful world of literacy is slowly dawning on Titus.  He spontaneously read "keep" (a word we have not read) off of Brian's t-shirt at breakfast the other day.  Also - I found a series of books "Bob" books for teaching reading.  I love these!  Titus loves them.  It is not a fight to get him to sit down and read the few pages.  Then he usually reads the book several more times alone or even to Brian. 

What?

Titus found the brie cheese in the fridge and was eating it with crackers.  Isabele showed up with apples.  So, Titus tried the apples in the cheese, and said to Isabele, "it fills my tummy with joy".  (and no, I don't have the slightest idea where he came up with that)

Do we need to say anything else?

Re-doing the Basement

A work in progress, but by the end of next weekend, we are hoping to have a new bedroom and radiant floor heat installed and working.  All the tear-down in the basement proper is finished, and Brian is putting up the main wall along the support beam for the house.  Tomorrow should finish off the secondary wall and our closet.  Then it will be time to tear down the ceilings in the existing bedrooms so we can run the heat tubing in those areas (for the living room).  We put up the tubing for the dining room today.  It went very well. 
I think I may do the cleaning/washing of some of the outer wall brick this evening after the kids are asleep.  Tomorrow I have to work on getting all of the torn down drywall in acceptable form/containers for the trash men to take on Tuesday.  I also have to take some pictures, just to prove we really did what we are doing.

Coloring

Isabele has become a colorer!  She found a very old coloring book that was mine in high school.  She sits quietly and colors away.  Maybe next time we go to the store for a treat, I'll let her pick out her own coloring book.

First Week of Swimming Lessons

Isabele's class is Monday mornings.  She went to her first class without me and made it through the whole class!!  (with only 1 bought of crying).  Poor girl was expecting the same teacher from Mommy and me classes last spring.  To her (and my) great surprise, she has Spencer, a very nice young man.  If you know anything about Miss Isabele, you know that men are not her favorites at this age.  But, she made it through.  I had to dry her off about 15 minutes into her lesson because she was cold.  Then I coxed her back in the pool with "why don't you show Spencer how you can use the marshmallow stick.  I bet he doesn't think you can."  That worked and she finished the lesson all smiles!

Titus' class is Wednesday afternoons.  We decided to move him up a level to Eel, since he progressed so well this summer in the lake.  He also has Spencer for his teacher.  I prepped him A LOT, in hopes of getting him to do as well as I know he can.  It worked.  He had a great time and even told me, while shivering at the end of the 30 minutes, "that was pretty great". 

I don't think I'm going to have to bribe either of them to get them to go back next week.

Swimming Progress!!

Titus swam on his very own, without flotation devices of any sort yesterday, August 19, 2011!!!!!  He has come so far this summer with his comfort level in the water and his swimming abilities.  I am so glad that I pushed him when he didn't want to get in the lake.  We did not do any formal swimming lessons this summer, just lots of time in the lake at Bia's and a little bit of time at Pike Lake.  Titus will also run from the seawall, all the way down the pier and jump in without any flotation devices (the lake is low and he can just touch at the end of the pier right now).

Formal swimming resumes Sept 12th at the Y for both kids. 

Isabele is continuing to learn with her swimming also.  She's very comfortable paddling around with 3 bricks on her bubble (down from 4).  She willingly puts her face all the way in and will float on her back with help.  She's working on jumping in, but still needs at least 2 fingers to help.  She's just starting to be able to jump on dry ground and get both feet off the ground.

And Evening of Crying Kids

This happened 2 weeks ago, and I'm just now getting around to putting it in the blog...

Just came downstairs to bed. I had heard Isabele start crying while taking out my contacts and brushing my teeth. By the time I got downstairs she was sobbing, in her bed, "mommy mommy mommy".  She had my nightgown. She must have been really scared after going in my room to get me and only finding my empty nightgown on the bed. Poor kid.
Brian was out of town for the night, so I just put her in bed with me since she was so upset.