Summer Swimming and Writing to Obama

We just got back from swimming lessons and the Bean has made the most amazing progress, thanks in part to her Dad's efforts over vacation. No more keeping her head out of the water and going vertical. She is getting those eyes in, blowing her bubbles, kicking her feet, and has her "big arms" going like a champ! We have just started the summer session at Potomac Swim School, and the Bean knew that she would getting a new swim coach, but she was a little dismayed when we got there to see that it was a man! I was taking her to the restroom before class and she whispered to me, "Mommy, my coach is a boy!" But, Coach Ryan won her over pretty quickly and she had the best swimming session yet, so I am very optimistic about her progress from here on out.

The Moo's first lessons of the summer are this afternoon, and this will be her last session at PSS. She has benefited greatly from her time there, but her school offers swimming lessons and swim team, and Dad and I think she is at the point where the benefit of paying for the semiprivate lessons at PSS has probably run its course. She is determined she will be on the swim team come September, but I have been trying to dampen those expectations. They generally don't take them as young as Kindergarten, and to be on the team she has to be able to swim the length of the pool and back by herself. I'm not sure her endurance is quite there yet, although her technique is excellent. She told me, "Mama, you wait and see," so I will! I have certainly learned better than to doubt her and she has the summer to work on it if she wants to make it happen.

The Moo continues to read at an amazing pace. We are almost through the third set of Bob books, and her decoding skills are very impressive (at least, from my admittedly biased standpoint). She will definitely be ready to take off when she gets back to LCDS in the fall, especially since literacy skills are strongly emphasized in the Beantree program. Her basic addition and subtraction skills are also excellent -- I got out some unifix cubes to work with her on rudimentary math yesterday, and she blew the cubes off and did everything in her head.
The Bean saw the cubes and wanted to play though, we worked on some addition with her. She catches on very quickly and never seems to forget a concept once she grasps it. The girls may not have us outnumbered, but it is becoming abundantly clear that they have us WAAAYYY outsmarted.

I have resisted telling this story as I suspect that the majority of our readership is Republican, but the Moo is just so proud of herself that I wanted to recount it. She is a single issue voter right now, and her issue is gender. She was appalled to find out that only boys have been president, and she feels very strongly that it is time that the girls had a chance. She was, therefore, a very strong Hilary Clinton advocate, and was devastated when Clinton dropped out of the race. We tried to comfort her by telling her that maybe Obama would pick Clinton as Vice President, so we could still vote for a girl in November. She decided that she had better tell Obama to make sure to do that, so she wanted to email him. We went to his website and she dictated a letter explaining her very sophisticated reasons for wanting him to pick Clinton. This weekend, we got a reply -- you have never seen a child so self satisfied as the Moo. She is literally brimming with her sense of political efficacy. It almost makes it worth having to wade through all of the spam I am now getting from the Obama campaign!! Of course, the odds of him actually picking Clinton seem pretty slim, so I am guessing that there will be additional, outraged correspondence between Obama and 0ur resident political agitator later in the summer.

We were very relieved to hear that all is much better with Great Grandma and that the incident was not indicative of any serious cardiac troubles!! Hang in there Great Grandma and take it easy please!! We were also thrilled to see a link to Lolo's Log on the Mrs. Englebright website!!!!! YAY AUNT LOLO!! We are looking forward to reading your blog!!!!