Swim lessons for Micah

Way back in November, we won three free swim lessons for Micah in a silent auction at his preschool.  I finally succeeded in scheduling two of the lessons during the last week.
Living in Florida and constantly being around pools and bodies of water, we thought it was really important to get Micah some lessons so that he would know how to handle himself in the water.  He had a strike against him, which was having tubes in his ears twice.  So he hasn't been able to put his head underwater for pretty much his whole life, and consequently, he's been a little scared of water.
Miss Marcia, his swim teacher, is fantastic.  He started out his first lesson saying, "I don't want to go in the water!" and five minutes later she had him in the water without any tears or tantrums.  Turns out that she has some really cool toys that she only lets kids play with when they're in the water.  That's all he needed to hear.  Boys and their toys.

 

One of the things that Miss Marcia is teaching Micah to do is, "When you fall, reach for the wall."  And then he chug-chug-chugs himself along the wall to the steps to get himself out.  I'm so thrilled about that because I feel like he's a little safer in the pool.  No worries - I'm not going to toss him into the deep end and walk away, but it's helpful for him to start to be able to learn to take care of himself in the water.

When he accomplishes a task that she has asked him to do, Miss Marcia swirls him around in the pool, something that he enjoys - although you can't really tell by the look on his face in this picture.

Swimming on his own! (Well, with a floatie thing on his back and leaning on a floatie barbell, but that's pretty good for a three-year-old who wouldn't step foot in the pool at the beginning of his lesson!)

Getting goggles on him was a challenge, but he finally did it for one little trip around the pool.  Enough time to get a picture of him with them on!

Wordless Wednesday

Have hat, will sleep. Or not.

We've discovered that Micah likes hats. All kinds. And he wears them at all times, apparently specializing in them at bedtime. A turban?  He can rock it.  (Yes, he did it himself and no, I'm not going to tell you why there was a towel in his bed unless you leave me a comment and specifically ask because it's not really representative of our best parenting moment. I've already acknowledged my non-perfectness, but this was just laziness.)

 

A hard hat?  Obviously required for late-night reading when you're supposed to be asleep.  He had been in his room for an hour and all was quiet.  I foolishly thought he was asleep.  Rookie mistake.  Peeking in, this is what I saw. 

Sometimes you just have to photograph things or your kids won't believe the crazy stories you tell them when they're older about what they did when they were three.

Steelers Game!!!

Steelers Nation totally overtook Tampa today.
Our friends Matt and Kimberly scored tickets to today's game from Matt's office, so the four of us attended the game for free!  Well, we paid to park and we paid for beverages, but other than that, it was free!  And two of us had a really great time as we watched the Steelers easily handle the Bucs.
Raymond James is no Heinz Field, but it is a pretty stadium. The highlight is this ginormous Pirate Ship at one end of the field, and it has a cannon that fires every time the Bucs score or enter into the red zone.  Not gonna lie - pretty annoying.

We were sitting very high up in the stadium...

...but I like those seats because you can see the whole game.  Oh, and our camera has a pretty good zoom.

Three magical men: Ward, Randle El, and Wallace.

Check out what I caught on film - Ward's touchdown catch!!!

A touchdown celebration, this one at the other end of the field.

At the end of the third quarter, the Steelers were waiting for someone to be checked out by the medical team, and out come the Bucs cheerleaders.  Completely ignoring the man down on the field, they launched into their cheer right behind our guys.  Pretty annoying.  They got booed by the Steelers fans.  A lot.  And by that point in the game, most of the Bucs fans had given up and left already, so a significant portion of the stadium was booing them.

 

Tim and I had a good time.  I didn't even mind that he wore his Phillies hat.

Being there as a Steelers fan was really cool.  I seriously think that there were more of us than there were Bucs fan. Check out these pictures.  Does it not look like we're in Steeler country???

 

Seven Word Saturday

We are so ready for the game!!

Busch Gardens morning

Micah has been under the weather since Monday afternoon with a fever and even missed preschool yesterday.  But his fever broke last night and he was ready to go today so I took the boys to Busch Gardens.  It was so not-crowded that it was wonderful.  Even the Florida September heat didn't take away from the fun of a crowd-free amusement park.
We started out by riding the train all the way around the park.  My boys love them some trains.

 Right across from the trains is a little playground filled with hippos to climb on. So Micah and Liam got busy.

Micah took a minute to pose...

and then Liam had to follow suit.  It made for a cute picture!

Any room for little brothers in there?

The next shots are two little series of Liam.  First, the planes.  When we were at Kennywood a few weeks ago, Micah had a turn on the planes.  I thought he wanted to ride again and this time Liam was allowed to ride too.  So I got Liam all buckled into the plane, and then turned to put Micah in and he all of a sudden wanted no part of it.  So my brave and fearless Liam rode all by himself!
Can you spot the blond head?

Liam also loves birds.  And while Micah was starting to explore the hippos, Liam was saying hi to the birds.  One thing you need to know about Liam is that he is a non-discriminatory wafer.  He will wave at anyone and anything.  And he thinks that birds in particular need to know of his love and attention, expressed through his waves.  So he followed/chased/harrassed them.  And waved. A lot.

And to top it all off, it's Thursday - $2 Happy Meal Day. The boys were worn out and totally full by the time we got home - coincidentally at naptime.  A happy time really was had by all.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday morning golf

A couple of Sundays ago, Micah woke up and literally the first thing out of his mouth was, "We can play golf in the backyard today before church."

Micah is so fun to listen to recently.  The way that he phrases things is so unique and creative - and insistent.  And he remembers everything.  We had had the conversation several days prior about playing with his golf clubs, distinctly an "outdoor toy", on Sunday.  I meant after church.  He meant before church.  He won.  So we played in our pajamas.

Working the angles.

It's all about the club selection, Liam

 

See, Pop-Pop, Micah doesn't believe in "gimmes" either!

Yes, there is a ball in our dog-made sandtrap. I love how intently the boys are staring at it, trying to figure out how to hit it out.  Serious golfers in the making.  And Liam's already halfway to knickers with those pants, so he's set.

Friday was family fun day

Tim and I were thinking about something fun we could do with the boys on Friday.  Micah hadn't been to "Mickey's house", as he calls DisneyWorld, in quite some time.  You know, like a month, which is eternity for him.  I have no idea what we'll do if we ever move away from here and he realizes that he won't get to go to Disney whenever he wants!  But I digress...
Micah had been asking to go, and since the humidity has backed off like 10% (it's a pretty chilly "fall", folks, with temps in the low 90s!) and the crowds are lower because of the start of school, we decided to go.  I remember how much I love seeing everything decorated for fall and Halloween.  My boys sat for a picture for me, and Micah's making a face because the wall was pretty hot to sit on, I guess.

We tried to mix it up a little this trip, and did a few things we either hadn't ever done with the boys or hadn't done in a long time.  They had never done the Buzz Lightyear video ride.  Micah was not a fan - I think it was total sensory overstimulation for him.  Liam, on the other hand, is already a video game whiz.  Check out his hand on the controls as he rode with Daddy!

Imprisoned with Zurg!!  This actually turned out to be really cute.

In line for the racecars. 

Daddy and Micah burn rubber in their hot red racecar.

Liam enjoyed watching, looking for Micah and Daddy.  Notice how he taught himself to stand with both feet on the bottom rung of the railing.  How does he already know how to do that at 16 months?

We headed over to Tom Sawyer island, something I haven't done in a couple of years.  My boys, crossing a bridge. 

Find tunnel, will explore.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Micah's First Day of School

Micah started preschool two weeks ago, but I realized that I never blogged about it.  Bad mom, I know.  The pictures are worth the late post though.  He was pretty excited about his first day!

Following Daddy into school with his cool new Toy Story backpack!

The theme that started out the year for his class? Transportation. Yep, we're getting off on the right foot!

Once inside the classroom, he gravitated right to the trains.  Is anyone surprised?

Be careful what you ask for 'cause this is what you get when you interrupt trains to request a smile.

He made a new friend right away.  Male bonding over trains.  I love it.