Oh Crazy Babies.

Another busy couple of days! Friday we started our swim lessons in Kristen's pool, with a private instructor. Originally, they wanted to do all three girls together, and then a private lesson for each of the boys. Judd has done some mommy and me swim lessons and did well, but poor Adam had no idea what was going on AND was exhausted, so he sobbed until I got in the water with him, and then continued to cry until I cut it off early. The instructor advised that moving forward Whitney have her own lesson, Lexi and Ellie do a duo lesson, and that Adam and Judd can do a mommy and me splash time. That should work much better. The nice thing is that Kristen's pool is gated off from the rest of the back yard and there's lot of toys back there, so it's easy to keep the kids entertained and safe when they're not having their lesson. Much easier than trying to manage Adam and Ellie at the Y.

Then Ellie was back in the pool after her nap with the Grizz. Thursday and Friday were both two swim days for her. Saturday, only the one long swim, and then yesterday we dropped the kids off with Mimi and Pa and they had a pool party at the rec center, and Tim and I went to a pool party hosted by one of his coworker friends (also in Yorba Linda.) Everyone got to swim! Mimi and Pa were very impressed with Ellie's new splashing skills.

Here's our little crew on Saturday. This is the brief moment when Adam wasn't whining. He's not as much of a water baby as Ellie was. He's no bearducken, certainly. In fact, he's naked in that intertub. I feel lucky that he hasn't peed on me yet (as far as I know.)

Here's how I found Ellie on Thursday at 4pm. We'd gone over to swim at Gigi's right after school, and she begged to nap there. Conked out like someone had slipped a sleeping pill in her grilled cheese.

This morning I picked her up early from school so that we could have a lovely lunch with Cara and Clare. Clare is going to be a big sister in the next few weeks, and so I took the opportunity to unload all of my baby gear on Cara, who had borrowed most of her baby stuff the first time around and was without the necessities, like a swing and a play mat and an exersaucer. All of that stuff that you NEED but then only use for two months, but yet during those two months, that piece of motorized plastic is your best friend in the entire universe. It's bittersweet to give all of those things away and know that it's the end of our baby era, but I know they're going to a good home, and I love seeing how big and fun and funny my sweet baby boy is becoming.

Also, naughty. MAN that kid is naughty. Observe:

Nothing is safe from him. Now that he can climb on the couch he climbs up, grabs Tim's phone and swipes it open. He also likes to stand on the couch to reach all of the electronics that we have sitting on the table behind it. Soon we're going to put everything behind the baby gate with the TV. And he knows he's being devilish because he laughs like crazy when you catch him in the act.

He's also dropping down to one nap a day, which is working out mostly okay. His morning nap always seemed to be interrupted by something - I'd wake him up to go get Ellie from school, or she'd wake him up banging around the house, and sometimes his afternoon naps go so late that Ellie misses out on doing things until 5pm or later, which is no fun for her. I am mostly hoping that he can stay awake until 1pm, so that I can put them down at the same time and get a few hours of quiet to myself. Ellie still takes a good nap most days, but it takes her forever to settle down. She likes to get up and make a big production about having to go to the bathroom (and then pee four drops of pee) or she'll change her clothes, or put on some sort of long theatrical production with her stuffed animal friends. But she ultimately still needs an hour or so of snoozetime a day. I don't know what I'll do when she quits napping. Probably cry (because then how will I get chores done while also watching horrible reality TV?)