Splash!

Today I have mostly ignored my children and spent the day chopping up old clothes into strips and then weaving them on my peg loom to make a rather gorgeous (not finished yet) rag rug. Aside from a nasty blister on my finger and a very sore thumb (my scissors are big and heavy and my hands and fingers are one bit of me that is quite small so they’ve struggled) it has been very relaxing and theraputic. While doing it I had the music channels on the TV so Davies, Scarlett and I have been chatting about all sorts of things that were thrown up by that.

We’ve chatted about sampling music on songs (thanks to Kid Rock’s All Summer Long – infact I’ll pop the link to Sweet Home Alabama here while I think of it to show them as promised), we watched various music videos and they got the idea of some of them telling stories and rather perfectly Sledgehammer came on so Davies got to see that. Then we watched some dance videos including Run DMC vs Jason Nevins and it’s like that. Davies has been talking about break dancing ever since one of the Wellyboots boys showed him some ‘moves’ and he was also very impressed with Doug’s prancing about on Saturday and said he’d like to learn that sort of dancing. I’ve been wanting something for him to do aside from Badgers and swimming and he says he’d like to look at lessons so I’ll see what I can dig up for him to fit in with our other weeks worth of stuff. Could be good :).

Amidst all the musical stuff they played a long and convoluted game, tidied it all up, got a load more stuff out to play with, played with it, tidied it up and so on. They did a kit Davies got from the charity shop the other day with a balancing bird that drinks water then it flows down it to a bowl at the bottom and it was generally a fairly relaxed day.

It was the start of swimming lessons again today so having checked earlier in the day we had costumes, towels and goggles etc. all packed up we headed off at 345pm for the swimming pool. Scarlett remained in the 530pm lesson with Davies moving up into the 4pm lesson giving us a full hour inbetween lessons which it was my intention to fill each week by swimming myself with them inbetween but when we arrived Carollyn the instructor called me over to ask if we could make 330pm instead for Scarlett as there were still spaces in that. I dashed upstairs to the instructor manager woman and organised it from next week. Hurrah 🙂 That means Scarlett’s lesson is first with Davies’ straight afterwards and we’ll be home again for 5pm, miss all the traffic and they can have dinner at a normal time still :).

So Davies had his lesson which went well – he was about in the middle ability-wise so my worries about him being moved up too early and struggling were unfounded. He was fine with the new swimming hat and I think he will make some good progress this term :). We watched the diving lessons and he is really keen to do that so he has a proper goal to work towards with his swimming too. Scarlett was a complete nightmare while I was trying to watch his lesson, she just didn’t want to sit still, be quiet and watch. In fairness it was hot in there but I was still cross with her :(.

We all got in the water next and Davies did some jumping in and swimming, some underwater practise and then complained about a pain in his side. It took me a moment or two to realise he had a stitch – his first ever! He sat out for a while and Scarlett practised jumping in, then they both sat and watched me swim four lengths. I am a rubbish swimmer, really weak, no technique and cannot put my face in the water but I managed four lengths fairly easily and overtook the woman infront too. I would had done more but for the fact I felt uneasy about just leaving D and S sitting by the side. We had one last quick play and then got out to get Davies and changed. We all sat and watched more of the diving lessons and then Ady popped in to collect Davies on his way home and I stayed and watched Scarlett.

She did really well and I think she will make good progress this term too. She was fine with the swimming cap which had been the source of some concern initially and looked like she was not only enjoying the lesson but actually paying attention too. We’ll have to see what the mix of abilities is like in the earlier class next time but she seemed to be about in the middle of that class.

We got home, Ady had sorted their tea out and I did a bit more ragrugging while they ate. A couple of bedtime stories and then they were both spectacularly bad at getting to sleep while I made quiche for dinner tonight and one to freeze for later in the month.

Tomorrow the plan is PYO with Julie and a couple of friends but the weather may well force a change of plans.