Sam Lost His Hair!

Every once and a while, Sam's hair gets long enough that it needs to be cut. And anything that employs sharp objects around the children automatically gets tasked to me in our house, so the heavy burden of making sure Sam isn't a ridicule based on his haircut falls to me. I've generally kept his hair about the Sam since it came in - he has my wavy hair, so I've kept it long enough to see the wave which usually results in cute hair, but in strange weather tends to stick up in awkward places. But with the coming of summer and Sam's need to run around outside all day long and get little-boy sweaty and his new swim lessons, I decided he needed a little boy summer haircut.

Enter the buzz:
Sam likes the new haircut because it makes his hair feel all prickly when you run your hands over it against the grain and because it takes less time to wash it in the bath. In fact, he celebrated his new hairstyle by posing for his emo singer album cover photo:

Swim Lessons

Since we often spend a decent amount of time at Greer's Ferry Lake with Joy's family in Arkansas, we've been wanting to get Sam swim lessons for some time. Now that he's four going on 12, we decided this summer would be the one to start. So Joy scoured local lessons and asked for recommendations and found a group of teachers who keep class sizes small and teach even young children to swim and not just blow bubbles in the pool.

Sam's first lesson was yesterday and before he went we had to fill him in on the rules. He diligently wrote them all down including doing exactly what the teacher says immediately when she says it (we often have slight problems with that rule at school) and raising hands and waiting to be called on to speak. To Sam's credit, he followed all the rules, though his hand was up for much of the lesson.

There are only three kids in Sam's class (including Sam) and right off the bat they worked on floating, proper form in kicking, in hand and arm posture, and keeping your face in the water. While the teacher worked with one kid in the middle of the pool, the other two stood on the stairs and were supposed to be practicing. Instead they looked around, mesmerized by standing knee deep in water.

Sam seems to be enjoying the lessons so far, but I'm a bit worried about what lesson he is bringing home. He had the most trouble with keeping in face in the water and humming and blowing out bubbles, so he's supposed to practice in the tub. With Noah. Who will also want to practice. And Sam might want to help. We'll see how it all goes.

Nurturing

Noah has discovered his closet. It used to be that he didn't wonder about what was behind those two big white doors in his room - he was happy just to play with the toys in his toy basket or pull books off his shelves or, if he were lucky, sneak into Sam's room to get some of the good toys. But last week, he began opening his closet door and pulling out all the toys hidden in there. We generally keep toys and clothes he has just outgrown or hand-me-downs from Sam that he isn't ready for yet in the closet, but Joy also keeps some of her Kindermusik toys. In the Kindermusik section of the closet rested a baby doll. Sam never showed any interest in the doll and so we never bothered getting it out for Noah.

Big mistake.

Noah found the baby and was instantly smitten. He carried around the baby all morning, feeding it, singing to it, and even demanding a blanket for the doll. Sam, not wanting to be left out, asked for a doll of his own and together the boys happily cared for their babies. Joy, overjoyed at this display of nurturing, decided to call me at work and let me know how loving our children were being toward these dolls. She walked over to the phone but was stopped short by a sound. It was a rhythmic thumping like hollow superballs hitting the ground, but louder. She went to investigate and discovered Sam and Noah gleefully grasping their baby dolls by the ankles and using them as swords to bash each other.

Ah well, at least they are MacGyver-esque in their ability to create weapons out of anything. That's a useful life skill, right?

Post-1945 Journals Available for Your Reading Pleasure

My students have finished their final round of listening journals, and you can find them over on the class's blog. My recent profile linked to the blog, so hopefully the students have been getting useful feedback from complete strangers and you can help that process by going, reading, and commenting. Enjoy!