Thursday photo #252

It seems the topic on everybody’s lips this week is the weather. After that deceptively glorious sunshine, it has finally returned to the much anticipated rain. Personally I’m quite pleased. Hopefully, next time the sun comes out it really will be the start of Spring and it will be here to stay a little longer.

Improving

Less than a year ago, Lia couldn’t swim. We took her to the pool every week and she’d refuse to take her float off, or if she didn’t have it she’d cling to me. My husband and I are both competent swimmers. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it is my sport. But this meant nothing to Lia when we tried to help her with her swimming, because as far as she’s concerned we’re both idiots.

As soon as she started swimming lessons, she became a different child in the water. She whizzed through level one, took a little longer over level two but whilst she was in there she became confident enough to swim in the deep water and jump in off the block. We knew she could swim better than she was swimming in her swimming lessons, but she’s just not one of life’s triers.

Then a month ago, she moved up into stage three. And something clicked again. She was swimming widths with ease on her front and back. Jumping in, diving down to collect things from the bottom of the pool. There was no stopping her. Still, it came as somewhat of a surprise when she moved up into stage 4 at the end of her lesson on Sunday.

And now, suddenly, she’s only two levels below Libby. Libby has been learning since just before she turned four. She loves swimming more than anything and she tries her absolute hardest week in, week out. But she’s just not built the same way as her sister and until she can swim a length butterfly, she can’t move up into stage 7. We’re all rooting for Libby and hoping it won’t be long before she moves up, she will be devastated if her self-confessed lazy little sister catches her up.

Pancakes

I really don’t remember pancake day being such a big thing in the past. Perhaps it’s my memory, but it seems to be the latest tradition that’s getting supersized this year. We spent Saturday morning at a pancake event near the children’s school. They took part in pancake races and of course ate pancakes.

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t feel that this was enough pancakes and insisted on having pancakes on Tuesday as well. Strangely, taking part in the pancake races where they were supposed to flip the pancake made them determined to flip them at home.

So, I got a clean, cold pan and put a pancake in it for them to flip. It was surprisingly successful and managed to stay away from both the ceiling and the floor. But after the amount of handling it got, we decided it wasn’t fit for human consumption. And that’s the story of how we ended up feeding a pancake to the dog. I suspect it may become somewhat of a family tradition.

Thursday photo #252

Last week, I took some photos in the girls in their new ballet uniforms from Dance Gear. I always enjoy taking photos of them on the trampoline. It seems to inspire creativity in them and they happily dance around, do gymnastics and generally have fun while I take the photos. We keep thinking that we need to spend more one on one time with each of them. But then I see them playing together like this and remember how fleeting childhood is and what a privilege it is to have someone to share it with.