Shutdown’s over.
The last night of shutdown I asked Ty what his favorite part of the holidays was. By this time, apparently Christmas and Santa Claus was a distant memory, replaced with the recent trip to Bundaberg. He said he had 3 favorite things:
1: (instantly without hesitation) watching the fireworks in Lily’s flower shorts
2: playing dress up with dad (dad is the world’s best ninja-pirate-superhero)
3: watching the turtles poop out their eggs

School.
So the holidays are over for Jay and I but school doesn’t start until the end of January, and Auntie Em doesn’t arrive until February. We were fortunate enough to have Bonny Babes extend Lily’s stay until Em gets here. She is in 2 different rooms, depending on the day, but she is familiar with the center and the teachers, so getting back into the routine was a breeze for her. Too easy, mate.
Ty started vacation care at St Stephens. We thought it would be a good transition for him – allow him to get familiar with the school grounds, some students, and teachers. He is by far the youngest kid there, but seems to be hanging in with the big kids. Vacation care is awesome, according to Ty. Movies, video games, Cricket games, obstacle courses, and slip-n-slides. I keep telling him that this isn’t what big kid school is going to be like, not sure if that is registering. He is likely going to be in shock once he has to turn his brain back on. I can tell he hasn’t thought much for a while – the other day he had a hard time saying his ABC’s… But he is growing up on me. The 2nd day of vacation care he wasn’t sure if he wanted to give me a hug. And the 3rd day he wore his hat sideways. When we go to drop off or pick up Lily at Bonny Babes, he struts in like he is so cool and reminds people that he is in big kid school now (you know, just in case they forgot).
We did have a little drama that I am noticing is a trend for him. Any time he has a big life event, he seems to revert back and has a string of accidents. :(. He gets so involved in whatever new and exciting thing that he is thinking about, that he completely loses focus on his bodily needs. So we had a couple days in his first week that we had to remind him of things and get his brain re-triggered. Hopefully that first week was the last of the problems.

Work.
Jay and I both had a busy week. It was his month end, so he worked late a few nights, but thankfully was home in time to help get the kids bathed and in bed. My work is back in full swing – almost like we never had a break in there. Makes the days go by fast – almost too fast! I was thinking about how different this job is than other jobs I have had. I have had stressful jobs before, but most of the time in prior jobs the stress was manageable and sort of predictable. I knew when I was going to have a super busy day/week and could mentally prepare for it. In this job, it is constant and relentless. You never know what kind of issue is going to crop up, what new challenge you will be faced with. A coworker said that is the way supply chain is in any company. Kudos to all of you out there that have spent most of their career in supply chain. It’s exciting, but at the same time exhausting. Hard for a control freak planner perfectionist to adapt to. Hard, but not impossible.

Mentor.
I heard some big news this week that one of my most favorite ladies at Deere is leaving the company. When I first met her, I was very much intimidated by her – as she is one of the smartest people I have ever met. I had the pleasure of working in her department for a couple years, and I learned a lot from her, more than she probably realizes. She has a unique way of being able to motivate people to do their best without being bitchy or bossy. She always conducts herself in a way that others want to mimic. I wish everyone would have a chance to learn from her, simple things such as always being prepared for a meeting, never arriving late, speak up with a valid opinion, do your research, consider all options, read books, and have fun. I wish her the best of luck in the next chapter of her life.

Mail!!
We hit the jackpot with Christmas cards this week!! So many arrived, and we loved reading all of them. I have never appreciated those quite as much as I have these past 2 Christmases. It means so much to us for friends and family to take the time (and pay the extra postage) to send us real mail. We miss you all so much!!!

Lazy.
Ty was not doing well during his swim lesson. There were 6 kids on Saturday, which is about 3 too many. He was being lazy, touching bottom, not trying at all. So I decided that it was time to drive out the laziness – have seen far too much of it lately. I told him that since he wasted our money for the last half hour, we were going to do another swim lesson as soon as we got home. No playing. No whining. Just prove to me that he an swim. He was not impressed, but he also knew that a trip to the water park was at risk if he didn’t do it. He managed to cause quite a scene – I’m sure all of the neighbors wondered what the heck was happening at our house. But about a half hour later he had swam the length of our pool and back using all of the different techniques they teach at lessons. I hated seeing him upset, but I hated even more the thought of having a child of mine be lazy. There is a time to rest and a time to have fun, but practice and game time are times to give it your all. By the end of it, he got a big high five, a big hug, and a nice chat about practice practice practice.

Waterpark.
So he earned his way back to the water park!! Good thing because Saturday was hot – 29 degrees. Lily went down a water slide twice. The first time was great, smiling and laughing the whole way. The second time she got stuck on her back halfway down and jay had to grab her foot to pull her the rest of the way down. She would have done it again but dad said no. So we splashed around the kids pool while Ty did the slides over and over and over again. We were there for about 3 hours – just enough to wear the kids out, and went home to rest. Fun day!

Pool.
Ok, so this next bit is going to consist of me lecturing a bit.

If you have young children, PUT THEM IN SWIM LESSONS. I don’t care how busy your schedule is, or any other excuse you have, PUT THEM IN SWIM LESSONS. And don’t quit until your child is a champion swimmer. Please. For the love of God, please.

So Ty got invited to a friend’s 5th birthday party at a neighborhood pool. There were only 4 boys there, which should be a manageable number. I wore a long dress and sandals, didn’t figure I would get in the water with the kids. I was chatting with the other parents but was unable to relax at all. Ty was doing great – swimming strong, knowing his limits, swimming to the edge or shallow part when he was tired. The other kids…well…it was apparent to me that they hadn’t been in swim lessons every Saturday for the past year. They dog paddled their way around, bobbing their heads up for breaths, constantly going out to the deep end, not aware of how weak they were. I was counting 4 heads nonstop for an hour before the boys came out for a snack. They ate heaps of lollies (as kids do at parties – not a huge deal) and then went back out for a swim. At this point most of them probably should have taken a longer break. But they insisted on going back in. So Ty is in the deep end, just off the shallow ledge, and a friend was right next to him. My version of the story might be different than that kid’s parent, but what I saw was the friend panicking and grabbing on to Ty. Ty is a strong swimmer, but not strong enough to hold up another person, so he started to panic. It only took me about 5 seconds to realize what was happening and I grabbed a noodle and ran into the pool, long dress, sandals, and all. The boys were just out of my reach, and thankfully just before I had to dive in all the way, another mom with a swimsuit on came running into the pool and grabbed the boys. Oh. My. God. Ty was crying, saying he couldn’t breathe because his friend kept pushing him down. His friend was crying for the same reasons. The boys talked it out, we told them that they have to not touch each other in the water, always swim to the side or shallow part of they get tired. They apologized to each other, and then we saw the other mom’s keys at the bottom of the deep end. Ty threw on his goggles and dove down to grab them. Champion.

They boys wanted to stay in the pool (I wanted to go off and cry), so we let them play for another 10 minutes or so before it was time for ice cream cake. Which was delicious. But the boys wanted to swim again. This was now 2.5 hours in, I could tell Ty was tired, so I called it a day. I couldn’t handle another minute of watching kids nearly drowning in the pool.

So PLEASE PUT YOUR KIDS IN SWIM LESSONS!!!! I am not saying Ty is an Olympic athlete, but it was rewarding to me to see that all of those Saturday mornings were paying off. I just wish the other boy had been doing the same so that my son wouldn’t have almost died.

So I got home, told Jay I couldn’t watch a kid for 20 minutes, cracked open a beer and say on the patio to blog. There is a nice breeze, light rain, high tide. And my kids are alive.

Holidays.
I started making some plans for my sisters’ trips to Australia. I made some reservations for Jess’s trip, proposed a plan to Brooke that I will get booked today, and next will outline some ideas for Sundie’s trip. I am so excited to spend time with all of them!!!!

It sounds like Lily is not pleased with something, and I have blown past my “I need 20 minutes to calm down” so I better sign off for now. Stay warm, American friends, and stay cool, Aussie friends. G’day mates!!