The Week in Review

It's been an interesting week, in spite of the fact that I still have to take it easy on my foot. I went back to the doctor on Monday and got the bandage changed. He gave me a boot cast to wear when I'm out and about, which makes it easier to walk, but is really heavy, hot, and uncomfortable. Needless to say, I only wear it when I have to and stick with the very attractive shoe the rest of the time. On the down side, I do end up yelling, "Don't step on my foot!" an awful lot.

No one was in camp this week, so it was me and the three kids entertaining ourselves since Mike went back to work on Monday afternoon. They got a bit stir crazy and watched more TV than they normally do, but we survived. Our son did an evaluation for a pre-competitive swim team on Tuesday and will be able to start swimming with them in September. He was very excited to watch the huge number of kids in the pool (there were probably 20 lanes swimming at the same time between 2 pools) and can't wait to join in. I don't know how thrilled either of us will be when he's swimming in the dark in November, but we'll give it a try for the fall and see how it goes.

Everyone had swim lessons on Wednesday morning. I couldn't go in because of my foot, so I paid a friend's daughter, who is in high school and is a swimmer and a lifeguard, to take our little one in instead. It was fun to sit back and watch all 3 of them for once. I also found out that she will be old enough to take lessons on her own starting this fall, so it's the last session of lessons that I will have to be in the water. It's the end of an era - I think I've been in the water with one kid or another for the better part of 7 years!

Our son has done tae kwon do at school for the past 3 years, but they dropped the program at the end of the year, so we need to find a new studio for him. His old teacher recommended 2 places, so we checked one out on Wednesday evening. The class they had us sit in on was their basic class, where they work on discipline, basic skills, and their core values. It was not at all what our son expected and he absolutely hated it. I'm hoping I can get him to check out their forms and sparring classes to give it a fair shot, but he wants nothing to do with it right now. We may go see the other studio and see if he like it any better. I'd hate to see him give it up because he's actually quite good at a lot of the skills and he's worked hard at it for a long time now.

Thursday we went grocery shopping. Under the best conditions, it's no fun to take all 3 kids to the store and with my foot in the boot, I really wasn't thrilled with the prospect. I decided to take them to the park first to burn some energy, with the understanding that I was going to be sitting down the whole time. They managed to find a little girl to play tag with them and had a great time running around. Shopping went well after that and our son got to play Safeway Scavenger Hunt while we were there. I send him out to find things from my grocery list, and he has to hunt them down and bring them back to the cart. He's gotten pretty good at it, but we do seem to end up with more bags of chips than I sent him out to get.

The older kids went to Great America with friends on Friday. I didn't tell them about it until Friday morning, and my son's reaction was, "Are you serious?" Being the smart ass I am, I of course responded, "No, I'm kidding." He looked very confused, so I reassured him that it was true and that he needed to get his stuff together for the day. I kept our youngest and our friends' 17-month-old for the day, which our little one loved.

I took the girls to the Y for my Pilates class, my first exercise since having my foot done. It was so good to do something besides sit around! I had to modify some things, but found I could actually do a lot more than I had expected. I'm dying to do some kind of aerobic workout, but this will have to hold me at least until the stitches come out on Tuesday.

Today we just stayed at home. Mike cleaned out the garage, I cleaned up the garden and the dog run, and the kids and dog ran around like the lunatics they are. We had dinner together - ribs, potato salad, coleslaw, garlic cheese bread - and watched the Giants game (they won!). The night ended with fireworks from Great America.

So it's been a good and busy week. Next week, our older daughter is doing a gymnastics camp and that will be the last camp of the summer. Our son's 8th birthday is Monday and he and his sister are beside themselves excited about it. It should be another fun week!