The neighbor girls gave our kids a small bag of the Valentine hearts candies with little messages on them.  Grant kept asking me to read them to him.  On one it said, "Marry me?" and Grant looked at it and said, "Why is there a mystery at the end?"  I love how a question mark means "mystery" to him.  It literally does, of course.  We ask questions about mysteries, things we don't know they answer to.  But I thought it so interesting that he would look at that and think that way.  I suppose he made the connection from a book or tv show where a question mark was shown in the context of as mystery.  But I can't think of what book/show it was, yet.  I guess it's a mystery!

Also, Madeleine has gotten Grant to play “beauty salon” with her the last few days.  She’s got two small chairs sitting one in front of the other, and one will sit in the front and have their hair done by the other one sitting behind.  Madeleine is out there whining now, though, because Grant doesn’t want to play with her right now.  Lots of whining around here at times!

I took the kids to four weeks of swimming lessons this summer. Grant is 3, so he had to go in the parent-child tiny tots class, and I was with him all the time. That was a good thing, because he got constant attention, either from me or the teacher or one of the assistants. And he really turned into a little fishy. He was going under water and doggy paddling and he even let me drop him off of the diving board (to a teacher who caught him). Madeleine was in the Level 1 class, and she was really really scared about it. She cried and cried before going, because we said she should put her head in the water. In her class, when they did bobs (going underwater), she would dip her face in and out super-quick, and even that was scary. For three weeks she was in that class, and she just didn't get that much attention, because there were 3 teachers to 10 kids, and they didn't have the manpower to sit with her one-on-one. But for the second session (weeks 3 and 4 of our total lessons), Haley and Tegan came with us. Tegan had a class, but Haley didn't. So I asked if she wanted to come and help with Grant, and then I'd bring Madeleine into Grant's class. The last week we did that. I asked Grant's teacher and Madeleine's teacher, and it was all okay. And so Madeleine spent five days in Grant's class. She was not a happy girl. There was fighting and screaming if I tried to get her to the slightly deeper water (maybe 3.5 feet) or if I tried to get her under water. Grant's teacher Jessica came and worked with her, and there was fussing there, too, though not quite as much as there was for me.  Monday and Tuesday were pretty difficult.  Madeleine wanted to do fewer bobs, and I said she should do more, and it was a big struggle.  Wednesday Jessica had Madeleine jump into the pool at a depth of 3 feet, and Madeleine cried and cried.  She held her hands at first, but then wanted her to do it without holding on.  There were three lifeguards right there, and me, and we promised her head wouldn’t even go in the water, and there was soooo much crying and fussing.  And finally, when I promised her slushies and pestered her more, she finally did jump in.  Oh the drama!  The trauma!  But we did go get Slurpies at 7-11.  (That week Madeleine learned about both slurpies and ice cream cones – I’d never really gotten her either of them before.)  After Wednesday’s lesson, when we got home, Madeleine made a wish on a dandelion that Grant’s teacher wouldn’t be so mean to her anymore!  I said she was actually being really nice, taking her into the class and giving her lots of attention and help. 

Now sometime around Wednesday or Thursday, Madeleine started to actually go under water on her own, to do bobs.  Essentially what happened was that she got tired of me pushing her under the water, and started doing it on her own so that I wouldn’t do it for her.  And fairly suddenly she was going under water fairly well.  I would say, “Hey, let’s go jump off the diving board,” and she would immediately dunk herself in the water, as if to say, “No way, I’m doing bobs, see?  I’m doing this, that’s good enough!”  On Thursday or Friday she started jumping into the pool at 2 feet depth, by herself, and then started sliding over closer to the 3 feet part.  She was much improved! 

Then we went swimming at Memorial (our swimming lessons pool) twice this week.  On Tuesday we went with Merrie Jo, Jimmy, Jameson, Brogan, my mom, and Aunt Marcy.  Marcy let Madeleine use some of her goggles, and what a difference that made!  Suddenly Madeleine was staying underwater for a long time, five seconds or more, and swimming around under the water.  It was so exciting!  She’d jump in the three feet water and purposely drop under the water as she did it.  She is so improved.  We went again today (Friday), just with Brian and Aunt Marcy, and today she would jump off the side, go under water, and then swim like a fishy for a bit away from the wall.  It’s a crazy good turn around.  Now, she’s not completely done with being afraid.  The big pool starts at five feet of depth, and we took the kids over there, and Madeleine would not go in.  She was so scared, and would only look out from the side.  I dropped her in to Aunt Marcy, and oh she was mad and unhappy.  But otherwise she is doing so much better.

Grant did some amazing back floats today.  I think he held one for over 20 seconds.  He was just floating and floating on the water, nice and straight and not touching anything or anyone.  It was fantastic. 

For the record, I also went off of the diving board a few times.  I did a front somersault, a backward dive, and an inward dive.  I chickened out on a back somersault.  Maybe next time.  Then I got too much water in my ears, so I stopped.  Then I went down the orange slide, which is a long dark tunnel.  It was fun, but then when it spit me out I got a TON of water up my nose and ears, and I’m still trying to blow it all out of me.  Ugh.