recap of the week

This past week could best be described by one word: INSANE. After a couple of weeks of complaining that we had no activities, I was thrown smack dab into way too many of them.

On Monday Tyler started Vacation Bible School at my cousin's church in Mt. Laurel. It was a major hit from day one. He was initially hesitant to separate from me, but literally pushed me towards the door within seconds of entering his group. He loved the songs and crafts and bible stories...oh, and of course the snack. He told me about the teachings and would spend time practicing his bible verse. That kept him busy daily from 9-12:15, and then the week ended with a closing night ceremony, which included a picnic dinner, face painting, moon bounce, etc. All in all, a huge hit. In fact he cried Saturday morning when he realized that it was officially over.

If that didn't keep Tyler busy enough, then there was also "beach camp" daily. I say "beach camp" because that's what we referred to his swim lessons as, in order to lesson the blow. See Tyler LOVES water, but has no beach safety whatsoever and is afraid to put his head under or let people attempt to teach him to swim. Well, that was all put to the test on Monday when he started his lessons. Each day last week I listened to him cry and whine and fuss for his 30 minute lesson. I once even literally had to hand the baby off to a stranger while I (fully dressed) dragged my child, kicking and screaming, into the water. A sight to be seen, I assure you. He did make some progress, which mostly came from us, but I can't complain. He'll now jump off the dock into our arms and he'll hold onto our neck and practice his kicking.

Despite his progress, he's still terrified. It's absolutely heartwrenching to watch, but water safety isn't really something I'm willing to budge on (in fact I feel horrible that I let it go this long) because I know my child and this fear will just continue to grow the longer we put it off. After some soul searching and talking with the instructors, he will now start private swim lesson, in addition to the group lessons, on Monday. Teaching my chid to swim will apparently be quite costly, but again, it really is important.

So to recap, we'd leave the house around 8:35 to get Tyler to VBS, pick him up at 12:15, eat lunch in the car, and be on the beach by 1:00. He'd play for a bit, and then scream for 30 minutes of lessons from 1:30-2:00. We'd then stay on the beach for another 1-2 hours before coming home to get baths and start dinner. Oh, dinner, yep, I've finally been cooking that, as my mom has been in San Diego since Sunday.

So when I wasn't dragging Tyler from activity to activity, I was busy planning and prepping for my friend Tracy's bridal shower. I'm a bridesmaid, and although I love Tracy dearly, this was NOT good timing for me to be working on a shower. There was tons of planning to do, errands to be run, favors to be assembled, etc. There were days I don't think I sat down until 10:30. It was all worth it though, because I think she was truly surprised, but I'll get back to the shower in another post.

Let's see, we've covered Tyler and myself. Al was here too you know. We were busy with all of Tyler's stuff, but we did manage to squeeze in breakfast at Denny's with Jason one morning while Tyler was at VBS. Shhh, don't tell Tyler though. He'd be sad if he knew he missed his "panpakes and wiffed cream". But Al had to leave Wednesday afternoon, so we were sad to see him go.

As for Jason, well, he was busy just being his happy go lucky self. He never napped in his crib all week, but instead fit in car naps here and there. He's incredibly resilient, and it's amazing what a 5 minute nap can do to refresh him. He got dragged all over the place, stayed up late, skipped naps, you name it. He did manage to finally start really babbling. In fact we were pretty sure we heard him start to say "da da" last week, but he said it for sure when Al arrived. In fact we're pretty sure he might have said it meaningfully, but it really is so hard to tell. He now makes all sorts of babbling noises, including "m" "n" "b" and "da" sounds. He also loves to scream. And I do mean SCREAM, for fun of course. On Tuesday (I think it was Tuesday...bad Mommy) he started to take a few steps to cruise around furniture. On Thursday I discovered that he had finally cut his second tooth. He also started clap his own hands together (instead of just clapping his hands onto things or onto my own hands) and he can blow raspberries. He's still too busy to eat often, but indulges overnight in the 24/7 milk bar. I'm one tired Mommy!

So, that about sums it up. Busy, busy, busy.