We’ve been swimming a lot – at Contention Pond, at Springs Brook, at the Beach, at the outdoor Y pool. Here’s a scene from last Wednesday afternoon: We meet Julia & Simon at the outdoor pool at the Y. Sadie dons her purple goggles and hops right in while I sit at in a chair at the edge to nurse Frederick. Three minutes later Sadie rushes back to me, dripping, goggles still on. “I LOVE THE POOL!” she exclaims, then she hurries back into the water. (“Wow,” says Diana, “usually when Julia comes at me like that it is to complain or because she wants something.” I nod in empathy. Sadie’s unbridled enthusiasm in this moment is truly something to cherish.)
All this time spent swimming has made an impact. Sadie is very comfortable moving around in the water with her bubble and she can swim short distances (5 ft or so) without it. Going underwater is another new talent. After several repetitions of jumping off the edge of the pool with me catching her, Sadie said she was ready to jump on her own. I considered telling her that her head would probably go under, then thought better of it. I thought she could do it, so I’d wait and see how it went. She jumped, submerged, popped back up (she had her bubble on), and said “I went under!” with a huge smile. “Yes! And you came back up,” I pointed out. She climbed back up the ladder to do it again, and again, again and again. Sadie is enjoying swimming so much and making such rapid improvements that getting her into the water at least every other day has become a priority of our summer.
On Saturday Ransom and Sadie and Simon and his dad (Jeff) took a day trip to Contention Pond. This sparked great enthusiasm from Sadie, “I’m so excited to have a Mommy and baby day and a Daddy and kid day!” (Simon’s mom & I would both be home with our respective babies.) The report after the trip (and Simon’s birthday party on Sunday) was that it was “the goodest weekend” Sadie had ever had! While Sadie and Ransom were gone, I put away some seemingly forgotten and unsafe for baby toys, hung an arts & craft rack for Sadie, and got some old baby/toddler toys out of the attic. When Sadie got home from the Pond around 8:45 she was exhausted, but she was thrilled with all the new “Fredericky toys” and had to cart all of them from the bins in the living room to Frederick’s play mat in the office so they would be ready for him to try them ALL the next morning. I felt so lucky that she noticed and rejoiced in what was new (and much of it geared toward her brother, not her) rather than lamenting what had disappeared.
Not that she’s always looking on the bright side. Last week Mossy and I planned a day to pick berries, then visit Crane’s Beach. But Sadie didn’t want to go to the beach, she JUST want to play at the playground at the orchard. Her new habit of making threats came into play, “If we go to the beach I’m just going to sit there the whole time and cry!” “Fine,” we told her, “that will be your loss.” But wouldn’t you know, Sadie got her way in the end. The greenhead bugs were out so we called off the beach visit and spent hours in the shade of the orchard playground where the bugs weren’t so vicious. I forget the context of this one, but my favorite of Sadie’s threats was intended to be one of her more severe “If you don’t [do that], I won’t live with you anymore and I will never live with you again!” In the midst of witnessing an all-out tantrum, I have to bite my tongue not to reply with the obvious sentiment of the moment, “Well, that will be a relief.”
This week and last week Sadie is attending camp at a local park for half days, M-W. Two favorite friends are there, too. She enjoys it, bringing home pocketfuls of seashells each day. Unfortunately, getting her ready and out the door by 8:50 has been a challenge. Without preschool to keep her schedule in check, she’s renewed her natural night-owl tendencies. Sleep doesn’t come to her until about 9:30 these days, and it is not unusual for her to be up after 10. When I put her to bed, I usually fall sleep before she does. My assignment for a few nights in a row was to count to 100 in Spanish, then count to 10 in Spanish, then count to 100 in English, then count to 10 in English, and then count backward from 10 in English until Sadie falls asleep. For two nights I was asleep before reaching 100 in Spanish, so Sadie kept trying to wake me up to continue. On my next night with her she told me I only had to count to 100 in Spanish then count to 10 in Spanish (no counting in English) because I kept falling asleep to fast. Turns out I wasn’t able to manage that mandate either. Ochenta y cuatro is about as high as I can get.
Our first trip to Contention Pond was for 3 nights, beginning with July 3rd. Sadie loved being there. She wanted to do all the things she remembered from last year – swim with each person who was there, canoe around the whole pond, see fireworks, etc. It was a good trip.
Sadie has a knack for facts and science these days. We’ve been enjoying the “Magic School Bus” book series. We started studying dinosaurs a few months ago. Since then we’ve also been learning about the human body, and the ocean. Sadie drew a remarkably accurate picture from memory of a white blood cell “eating” a germ. This morning as Frederick was pulling to standing at the edge of our mattress on the floor, Sadie told him, “You have muscles and bones, Fredericky. You are using your muscles to pull your bones into new positions.” Today at camp she drew sea creatures, including a mermaid, some fish, a jellyfish, a crab, an octopus, seaweed, a sea star, and 2 tube worms (of all things! We learned last month that tube worms live near hot water vents in the ocean floor). If you mention composognathus, Sadie can tell you that this dinosaur was “about the size of a small dog.” She can tell you that T. Rex teeth were about “the size of table knives.” When Sadie doesn’t know the facts about something, she likes to make them up. Looking at a picture book with Dad last night, Sadie pointed out a castle that she said, “was from when the first people were born.” “Who built it, then?” asked Dad. “Oh,” says Sadie, “the moms of the first people.” “And where did the moms of the first people come from?” Ransom questioned. “They just ‘poofed’ and were there,” said Sadie. (Uh-oh, daughter of an evolutionary biologist shows creationist tendencies!)
Sibling relations continue to be a joy (although sometimes over-zealous). Last night at Frederick’s bedtime Sadie told him, “Goodnight Frederick. You are the cutest baby I ever saw.” Sadie may be twice Frederick’s size, but they are already very physical with each other. Sadie will bop Frederick with a toy, and just as I’m saying, “gentle, please,” he starts cracking up, laughing. “But he likes it!” giggles Sadie. And so he does.
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