Today was wonderful. Funny and bustling and replete with toddler frivolity. The day got off to such a sweet start. The eldest and little lady woke early, before 6, and crawled in bed with me since Bray's gone. Fortunately, they drifted back to sleep for an hour. That's when the little man awoke, solo in his room, and came hunting for any family members that could be found (the beds are officially, and finally turned around to toddler beds after the months of drama because there is absolutely no mechanism that can fence them in despite all our efforts).
He crawled into my bed and said, "There they are!" With all of his chattering, at 10 til 7 on a Saturday morning, the other two promptly awoke. As soon as the eldest opened his eyes, the baby hopped over to him in a single bound and said, "Hey S__! I missed you!" Then he turned to the little lady and said, "I missed you too!" Then promptly turning back to his brother he excitedly started jabbering, I couldn't write it all down fast enough, but I know he said, "You weren't in bed! I no can see you in mommy's bed. Are you okay? I like you!" And then they gave each other a big embrace and kiss. They looped the little lady in soon enough, but there is no doubt that there is a big love fest going on these days between brothers.
When then had the chance to go to a 3rd birthday party for one of my favorite people's son. It was awesome. It was in a contained play area with lots to climb on and my darling friend's niece and nephew doted on my kids. Especially the 11 year old boy who was amazing with children, and I can't imagine what his parents did to raise such a responsible little fellow. My eldest followed him around the whole party in near idol worship. When the little boy turned to me to say, "I'm going to take a break," and headed over to a table, my little man turned to me and said, "I'm going to take a break" and quickly followed his new friend to sit right next to him at the table. What a sport that precious one was. Plus there was pizza and cake and monkeys and over sized slides so the kids had a blast, and I totally felt like I could manage with the support system there.
Finally, we got a good swim in later this afternoon and boy the kids have really turned a corner. We've had several weeks of swim lessons. Though our first trainer was fired, our latest one rocks and she said on Thursday she couldn't believe how well the kids were swimming at two. They were accomplishing things on the 4-year-old-checklist! When my in-laws came over for a cook out Wednesday, my 6 year old niece ran into the pool doing cannonballs and now all the kids try to emulate it. Remarkably, the eldest, my most cautious, is a maniac. He goes running across the deck and without a pause launches into the deep end. Then he rushes around to do it again. It is so fun to hang out with them in the pool because I can do all the silly stuff I used to do as a kid again. I'm doing cannonballs and somersaults and feeling incredibly grateful for daily access to a pool! Here's a shaky excerpt from one of today's many cannonballs:
There still are hard moments but today was a treat. Especially a gift since two weeks from now I'll be in North Carolina for my conference and I hate having weekends away since I work all week. My time with them today was such a treasure.
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