Chez Boyer: June 2007

Molly's vocabulary

This is Josh. Here's an update to April's list of Molly's words. I have finally made it onto her list of names. She spent a week or two saying Josh, which is much harder to say than Dada, but now I'm Dada. She often makes speeches that repeat "Mama-Dada." She doesn't say Alex's name much, but when she does it comes out Ala. Her name for herself is Mono, or maybe Mano. She likes to say "Go!" as in, I walk into the room and she points the direction from which I just came and yells, "Go!" Okay, fine, I know my place. She loves our neighborhood swimming pool and can talk about it a bit, saying something between poo and pool, soft L. Mono loves to say "Bye bye" and as loudly as she can.

The cutest thing is when she "reads" a story called How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? It has human mom and dad trying to put various dinos to bed. Molly tells it like this: "Mama, nigh nigh, roar!"

Second swim meet, second heat winner ribbon

This time he won in breaststroke. We are really proud of our little guy. I spent the swim meet being a "kid pusher", which is mostly sitting around and waiting, then sometimes leading the kids where they're supposed to be. Here are some things that 6-and-under girls do while waiting for their turn in the pool:
play go fish
play with dollhouses
play with My Little Ponies
sit criss-cross on their towels
color in coloring books
build tiny civilizations out of Legos

Here are some things that 6-and-under boys do while waiting for their turn in the pool:
Heckle teenagers trying to play basketball, telling them when to shoot and trying to get them to pull their pants down. Loudly.
Try to climb and jump off of picnic tables that have been turned on their sides
Try to build forts out of picnic tables that have been turned on their sides
Try to climb and jump off of lounges that have been turned on their sides
Try to build forts out of lounges that have been turned on their sides
Try to kiss 6-and-under girls against their will
Play Star Wars
Play Pokemon
Shoot guns at people
Run, chase, and hit each other
Yell. Loudly. Constantly. For no discernible reason.

We're just as surprised as you are...

But Alex won his heat in the backstroke. If you're not familiar with swim meets, the first heat is the competitive one aka "the main event". Those kids get place ribbons, times, and it's the only heat that counts for competitive purposes. Alex didn't swim in any first heats. They are followed by about four noncompetitive heats, in his age group anyway. But the first place finisher in the noncompetitive heat does get a lovely green ribbon. Oddly, these ribbons say "Summerfield North Swim Team" which was the opposing team, we are Quail Hollow, but who am I to quibble? When I say Quail, you say Hollow! When I say Alex, you say YAY!! We are very tickled with his great progress, and we must get a picture up soon of him going to town in his little uniform suit. He's a good kid, is what he is.

Pool Times

This is Josh. I just want to say that I'm so proud of Alex for his swimming and bike riding, which are, you might be surprised to learn, linked. Alex rides his bike to the pool where he swims. It's about a quarter mile from our house, if that. We walk and push Molly in her stroller. For Alex, every trip to the pool makes him better at biking and swimming. It's a duathalon. A month or two ago, Alex was not fully comfortable putting his face in the water. Today I found him retrieving objects off the 3' -4' deep bottom of the pool. What brought this about? Peer pressure from the cool kids who swim well -- Greear, Meg, Illana, et. al. Also, he's on the 6-and-under Quail Hollow swim team, and that practices 7 or more times a day, so that doesn't hurt. Weeks ago, Illana's dad asked us if Alex would be joining the swim team. I replied that Alex doesn't swim. Illana's dad explained that the ability to swim was not a prerequisite for swim team (a good policy for 6-and-under activities, but worrisome elsewhere). Anyway, Alex has become a different boy in just a few weeks. If you see a wet 5-year-old ride by you and skid to a halt on his silver and green Diamond Back BMX, check to see if it's Alex.

Okay, it's Jen now. No pictures of Alex right now -- he's too fast! But check out Molly, who hung out for about half an hour in a group of girls in which she was the youngest, by about six years.

Random Funniness

I'm going to lead with a story about Alex's classmate (and former Spanish For Fun! classmate) Ilana. I was chatting with her dad at the baby pool -- Molly, by the way, is tearing up the baby pool -- but the point is that he was explaining how Ilana is just as skinny as Alex but she adores food. She will call home from playdates to ask her parents to bring her food. And this was the line that just killed me, he claims she often says things like, "Daddy, while I'm waiting for you to make my breakfast, can I just have a cheesesteak?" Needless to say, Alex doesn't even know what a cheesesteak is, and found no humor at all in this...

But he did explain the plot of the Wizard of Oz to me, saying that the Tin Man got a heart...."you know, that has all your blood, and niceness, in it."

And from Molly, basically she's just improving on the words that she's got, but last night we read a book called "How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?" that involves human parents trying to put these giant dinosaurs to bed. She retold and retold the story to me on every page, using the words "night-night", "mama" and a roar for the dinosaur. It is hard to duplicate here, but astonishingly cute to hear a tiny little dialogue punctuated by roars. Must get new videocamera...

Italy pictures

We put pictures of our trip to Italy on Snapfish. Try this link. Let us know if it doesn't work. One day I may get around to putting them in Flickr so you don't have to have an account to see them.

Josh