2012 Week 26

Kaitlyn was excited to find that our little blueberry bush finally had berries!  It didn't grow much last year and we were afraid the birds had eaten all of them already this year.  But look - a fully ripened berry!  Kaitlyn of course had to pick it and eat it, but she did show her brother first.  There are 4 or 5 other berries that may ripen up later.

We're having a heat wave - ick ick ick.  Trying to stay inside as much as possible this week. Making sure the kids get outside for at least one lap around the loop on their bikes before it gets too hot.  And spending some time in the pool when we get cabin fever.  We spent more than 4 hours straight in the pool on Saturday.  We had it to ourselves almost that entire time and it was SO nice.

Milestones aren't just for the big things like a first step or losing a tooth.  This week we were so excited that Tyler (very willing I might add) tried and LIKED salad!  Woohoo!

That's an almost-empty bag of mini carrots in his hand.  The carrots and the salad got the two thumbs up.  He also tried and liked onion rings and requested them for dinner again. 

I had my own moment to try new things this week as well.  We're on a health food kick and the last couple times in the store Sam has wanted to try the turkey burgers.  Ew! I'm not a found of ground anything.  But I can't ask the kids to do something I wouldn't do so I finally agreed.  I tried to give myself every advantage I could, insisting that Sam use the rib rub spices I like, adding plenty of flavor masking things like pickles, onions, and mustard, and eating it in a mini-slider portion.  Then I told myself "be brave dragon" (laughingly, as this is what Tyler says over and over every time I put sunscreen on him.  He thinks the sunscreen is too cold but I've told him he can't complain or whine when I put it on him anymore so instead he says that) and bit in.  Phew.  Not too bad.  Not gonna be anything I ask for, but I can manage it if I need to.  Good to know I'm as brave as my kids :P  Kaitlyn tried it with me, but didn't like it.  She did say she'd be willing to try "real" hamburgers though.  That's progress.

I've got to admire my kids and their creative thinking and ingenuity.  Tyler has a free subscription to a Lego magazine and each one has a section with photos of kids and their creations.  The kids decided they wanted to be in the magazine too.  So the other day they come downstairs with this and insist I take a photo so we can send it in.  It's supposed to be spaghetti.  The yello square is the plate. :)

Another big milestone for Tyler - floating on his back!  He's never been relaxed enough in the pool to get even close to floating on his own, although he's getting pretty good at other parts of swimming.   It's been our rule that Tyler can only go in the deep end of the pool if Sam or myself is actually in the pool with him.  So Sam told Tyler that if he learned to float on his back on his own, and could maintain it for 20 seconds, then we would change the rule and he could be in the deep end as long as we were watching, even if we weren't in the water.  It's all about motivation right?  Tyler was so determined to get to swim by himself that he worked on the floating over and over and over.  In less than 5 minutes he had it figured out and in less than half an hour he had our permission to swim in the deep end without us.