Dylan started swim lessons last night. Now I know we’re bad parents. None of the kids have taken swim lessons. In large part because they have always been held on Saturday mornings between 8 and 9 a.m. Like we’d ever make it to that. HA!

NOTE: Actually, the oldest took swimming a couple of times when he was young and only had 1 sibling. After that it was really too complicated.



But now, now they have moved swim lessons to Wednesday evenings. At the same time my mother and I were discussing swim lessons for Dylan. See Dylan takes after his mom. Me. Poor, poor boy. He has no interest in sports. He’s tried soccer. Too much running. He’s tried wrestling. More fun to play in the gym than wrestle. He has no interest in baseball or football or hockey. We’re running out of options here. So we decided to try swimming. He needs some form of activity to keep the boy healthy.

He loved it! Yay!

The hard part for me was watching him line up with the other kids and look so uncomfortable. We’d never been to the high school pool. He didn’t have his bubble. Neither of us was sure of what to expect. I could see it in his body language. He was stiff and unsure. So unlike him. He was put into level 3 swimming.



He watched as the rest of the level 3′s jumped into the deep end and swam back to the side. Yes, they just jumped in. In the deep end. He watched the level 2′s sitting on the side of the pool in the shallow end. He looked at the level 1′s sitting, with bubbles, on the deck of the pool talking. Hmmm… His teacher beckoned him to jump in. He climbed halfway down the ladder. He stopped. She told him to get in. He stayed right where he was. He looked at me and shook his head. No.

I wanted to run over and said there had been a mistake. I wanted to jump over the rail sectioning off the bleachers and run around the slippery pool deck (no shoes allowed) and pull him to me, reassure him and put him in level 2. I stood up. I walked to the rail. I watched with my stomach clenched. Dylan climbed out of the pool. The teacher climbed out. They spoke. Heads together. They walked over to the level 2′s and chatted with the instructor. Ms. Level 3 walked back to her kids. (This took approximately 93 minutes in Worried Mommy Time)

Dylan stood on the side looking unsure. He climbed down the ladder. He swam to Ms. Level 2 then to the side of the pool. Then he loosened up, talked to the other kids and had a blast. It took approximately 27 seconds from pool entry to loads of fun. Yay!

I have just this a.m. realized why getting up is so hard to do. The first couple of weeks of school I was running on adrenaline. Much like the first month I worked the graveyard shift. (That was BC – before children) I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours a day. The next month I slept all the time. I’m talking from when I got home to 5 minutes before work and occasionally at my desk. When I finally regulated my sleep – month 3 – I started a new job with regular hours.



Oops, tangent, back to the present… It has taken me 3 weeks to realize I’m not getting my 8 hours. Yes, I know people often survive on less. Many people don’t need 8 hours. I do. I can get by on less but it catches up to me with illness and exhaustion. It caught up with me this week.



Add to that the occasional waking in the middle of the night. Last night it was Dylan. Nightmares at 3:15 in the morning. Who are we kidding? 3:15 is not in the morning, it’s the middle of the freaking night and I’m protesting.



Apparently I’m having trouble focusing this a.m. Need more coffee. Back to the nightmares…

He was turning into a bulldog. Before that it was a chimpanzee, porcupine, bat, and a snake. He said it was scary because he was changing into so many things. Too many. It seems one or two would have been okay but 5 was just too many.



Then I had to lay with him. Then there was a bloody nose caused by an itchy nose. After staunching the flow of blood and some children’s Sudafed he found blissful sleep. Then I did. After returning to bed. While planning another blog entry (not this one).



I really need to go to bed earlier.

Ever have one of those days where the universe is out to get you?



This is what I’m talking about:

You drop off youngest at Grammy’s and notice bus leaving area without having left oldest.

A call to the bus garage informs you oldest son forgot to take different bus to Grammy’s so you must go BACK home to pick him up. You finally make it to school (on time) and second son is ten minutes late for early pick up. Now you must drop off oldest. You finally get on the road and find they have closed the expressway. You detour only to get stuck behind car going 10 mph and swerving all over lane. You finally get around little old lady who either needs to get glasses or a booster seat (& probably both) only to be stopped dead at the end of a line of cars almost a mile long getting on another expressway. The miracle? We were only 12 minutes late.



NOTE: Have I mentioned there is NO TRAFFIC where I live? This is one of the reasons I live here. People here think it is bad if rush hour traffic is moving less than 70 mph. You are never stopped dead. I’ve never been more than 5 minutes late because of traffic in the 14 years I’ve lived here… until now.

How I almost missed this I’ll never know.

You can go here to find some titles to get you started. Good thing I’ve read a few in the past couple weeks alone. In fact, the kids own a few on the list too. hmmm… time for a trip to the bookstore?