Little Fish

We are back home in Portland after almost a month in New York. We took Jude swimming almost every day while we were back east, and he is getting really comfortable in the water.

Here is a video of his first time really swimming on his own:

We got him a swim trainer, which is basically a bathing suit with removable floaties around the body. Dedicated readers may remember it from a few months ago. He started with eight floaties, and is now down to six.

Jude's favorite thing to do in the water is to tell me to do back flips, front flips, or handstands. Here I am doing a handstand while he observes.

Here's a video from the last day of our trip. You can see that he has gotten a lot faster and kicks his feet more than he did at first. He has to work harder with less flotation assistance.


Overall, swimming was a lot of fun this summer. Jude is getting better about getting his face wet, but still doesn't do it very often. He always says that he wants to jump off the diving board, but actually he is kind of wary of jumping in, even from the side of the pool. He will jump in off of the ladder or steps, when he is closer to the water. He swam a lot in the lake up at Baekeland Camp for the first week, and that was a lot of fun. He liked climbing up on the windsurf board, balancing, and then jumping in. I hope we can continue to work on his swimming now that we're back in the Northwest!

She swings through the air...

Ever since we spent a week at a Club Med in 2005 and tried the flying trapeze, I have been wanting to do it again. We almost went on a trapeze vacation to San Francisco a few years ago, but then it didn't happen. Then a trapeze school opened in NYC, but by that time I was pregnant with Jude, then busy with Jude, then pregnant with Ada, and before I knew it five years had passed. This summer, even though we have a very young baby, I decided that I just had to get out on the trapeze rig again.

I was worried that I'd be unable to do any of the tricks, since my body has been through a lot in the last five years. I haven't really exercised in months, and a lot of my muscles are pretty weak at this point. But once I got up on the rig and started swinging, it felt like I had been doing this for my whole life. We were put into the beginner group since we hadn't done trapeze for over a year, which meant that we got to do three practice swings and try for two catches. The more advanced students in the class got to do about twice that, but it was just as well that I didn't do more for my first time back because I'm incredibly sore as it is. Here are the videos of my two catches.

I had a great time and we're hoping to go again before returning to Portland. It was kind of a pain to get there, and Ada didn't make it through the whole class without needing to be fed, so I had to take a break and give her a quick meal right before my last catch. I was a little bit rushed and flustered because of that, but everything worked out in the end. Next time, I'll get to try something a little bit more advanced. The two tricks that I did the first time are the two easiest ones that all beginners learn first.

In other news, Jude learned to swim this weekend! Check back soon for proof.

Angel and Devil

We have arrived at my parents' home in New York just in time for some great weather. The last heat wave was ending just as we arrived Tuesday night, and the next one is not scheduled to start for a few more days, so we are enjoying the relative cool while we can. Jude loves playing in the sprinklers in the back yard, swimming in the pools, and playing with all of the toys at "AMA JEFF HOUSE".

Ada was a little angel for the flight out here. Although she didn't sleep well the night before we left due to some vaccinations the day before, we couldn't have asked for a better baby on the flight. She slept and nursed for almost the entire time, and was only awake and alert for about 30 minutes. Just enough time to change her diaper and coo at her a little bit. She didn't cry at all.

Jude, on the other hand, was a handful. If you've ever had dinner with him, you know that he can't sit still for even five minutes, so the five hour airplane trip was torture. We strapped him into his seat right when we got on the airplane, and luckily he didn't figure out how to get himself out until near the end of the trip. E Ben spent literally 95% of the flight entertaining Jude, between reading books, drawing pictures, playing games with the toys we brought on board with us, and eating snacks. We had packed a huge snack bag and pulled out something new every 30 minutes or so, which was very popular. Jude did a lot of begging to get up and came close to throwing a few fits, but he never completely lost it even though he was very tired. I say it was like traveling with a little devil but actually I was probably just low on patience due to my own lack of sleep the night before. Jude did pretty well, it was just a lot of work for us.

Our next few days are busy between trapeze classes, backgammon tournaments, cross-country races, and fireworks, but I'll try to post again before we leave for the Adirondacks.