June was my longest stretch apart from both my kids at 8 days . . . until July when we left them with my mom for 12. I had an out-of-town baby shower and then an amazing week-long work conference in DC back-to-back. I loved the week in DC in the beautiful, early summer weather - but man I was ready to get home to my family! One of the evenings they took us on a monument tour.
WWII monument -
Lincoln Memorial -
Over my week-long conference, we had meetings in the Capital, were able to talk to Congressman and their staff, a former chief of staff to President Clinton, hear the inside scoop on a bill affecting our industry while it was in the last few days of votes before becoming a law. Overall a great week both professionally and personally!
Back at home, lots of swimming was happening. After they swim, they normally put on mommy or daddy clothes to eat dinner -
Collin has been a great swimmer the last two summers, and he's started to improve his stroke this year, learning backstroke and rotary-breathing freestyle. But Maya gets the most cheers - most of them from herself!
She is comfortable putting her face in the water, which is a significant step forward. Now we just need to build her confidence swimming by herself. She can float on her back and get herself around, but as soon as she senses you're moving your hand, she panics.
I am slowly transitioning back to my part-time schedule, and I've used some of my Mondays and Fridays off to take the kids places like Pump it Up -
When Collin was at a camp he didn't want to miss, Maya and I met Grammy at the Children's Museum.
We tagged along to a birthday party for one of Collin's friends, and we all saw Finding Dory, Maya's favorite movie at the theater so far. She also enjoyed the Dory-blue cupcake!
We tried a backyard sandbox experiment - making a volcano. I thought it would last longer than 30 seconds - I remember thinking "wow I had a lot of morning left to fill!"
While Maya takes naps, Collin works on kindergarten homework, reads, plays on his Kindle, plays with his fighting men. Or on this day, completes a puzzle of he and his sister from Great Grandma B -
On a Friday evening, we took the kids to a go-kart race track and arcade place nearby. If you're patient enough to watch to the end of the video, you'll see Maya's "superstar" pose she created in celebration of making a basket -
We think Maya takes after my cousin Jasper in the drama department. She is a natural leader. Her preschool teachers tell us when she's the nap helper, she gives everyone instructions before putting their blanket on them. Here she is pretending to be the teacher, reading a book, showing it to the students, and then reprimanding her classmate, Danny, with an expressive face that cracks me up -
We've had such a fun summer - from 30 second volcanos to 3 hours bowling and playing putt-putt. When we're not in the pool and not traveling, we've captured the daily silliness and sweetness on our iphones.
No comments:
Post a Comment