Guppies

It's almost 3pm and I just caved to the delicious aroma emanating from our crock pot. While I eat my "quality control" preview bowl of Italian sausage and tortellini dinner, (a new recipe that's actually good!?!) I'll tell you about swim lessons. Jay did a session of swimming lessons on the Guppies level this month--four days a week for two weeks. Jay's lessons started at 9:30am. Spencer's lessons started at 10:10am. Did I mention that we're watching 8-year-old Spencer from 8am-3pm Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday each week this summer? We are. He's a great guy. We like him.

Anyways, during swim lessons, one parent stayed home with a sleeping Amber while the other parent went to the pool. Rose tagged along and swam in the kid area of the pool while the boys had their lessons. She'll be in swim lessons next summer. We arrived at the pool just before 9:30am each morning, stayed for two sessions of swim lessons and half an hour of free swim time afterwords. That's a lot of time to spend at the pool!

The schools in our area provide free breakfast and lunch for all kids ages 0-18 over the summer. So each day after swimming, we went to the elementary school across the street from the pool for lunch. Meals are not free for parents, though, so most days I sat and hungrily watched the kids eat and then got my own lunch when we made it home around noon.

Jay, swimming with his teacher.

Back float and jumping in like a pencil. 

Meanwhile, in the kid area...

Jay liked to give Rose a swim lesson when he was done with his class.

As the days progressed, Rose got out of the pool earlier and earlier. Swimming wore her OUT!

 Lounging in the sun.

One day I decided to bring Amber. She liked her first trip to the pool alright.

 Babies in the sun always look so sneaky, squinting their eyes.

FRIENDS! (and a cousin)

Waiting for lunch at the school.

 Bagel pizzas with buddies: must be summer.

We left the house at 9am and got home at noon four days a week for two weeks, and even though Jeff and I took turns driving, (17 minutes from home) we both still heaved sighs of relief when swim lessons ended last Thursday (July 23rd). Now that I'm writing about it, three hours a day doesn't sound very long. But it sure felt long when we were in the middle of it, probably mostly due to my acute, hollow hunger. I run 4-5 mornings each week and my post-run metabolism kicks into overdrive right about 10am, leaving me wobbly and hungered right during swim lessons. Thankfully, however, we met with other friends/family at the pool every day, and sometimes I got in the water and played too, so it wasn't all hungry slow-going.

Jay did a good job in his level two Guppies class. I think he'll have it all figured out by next summer.

Here's what it looked like on about day 6 of swim lessons when I asked the kids to sweep under the table after dinner. Swimming is exhausting!