A World of Imagination

Cate is all about pretending these days.  She has always had a healthy imagination, what with her three imaginary friends (Elizabeth, Bufana and Lizdee) and all, but lately she has kicked it into high gear.  

Timmy is usually a good sport about all of the pretend tea parties, sleepovers, birthday parties and pretend babysitter games.  He calls up his "friend" Rick and they join the game for awhile before heading off to play cars.

Mimi came for almost a week while Tim was working in Las Vegas right before Mother's Day.  She is great at pretend games and outdid herself this time with a pretend Toy Story guys game that she then had to play all. week. long.

At the moment, Cate wants to be a mommy when she grows up because mommies get to workout and twirl in the kitchen while they cook.  I think she might be mistaking wearing workout clothes with actually working out.  That's ok, it's just pretend.

There are plenty of days when I am tired of playing pretend princesses or parties, but I try to remember that she is already almost four and her pretending days will suddenly come to an end, so I should soak up all of the funny things that she says.  Like when she is the mommy and I am the babysitter and she always leaves me a fancy dress for her baby to wear.  Just in case we go to a wedding between dinner and bedtime.  The girl is always prepared for a party.

Little Fish

The theme of the past few weeks has been swimming, swimming, swimming.  Cate and Timmy have been going to swim lessons four days a week in the late afternoon.  For two kids who did NOT want to get in the baby pool last summer, they have done great.

There was a little bit of drama from our resident drama llama on the first day, but she loved her teacher and did much better than I thought she would.  

We have also been using our own "hot tub" method to work on things with them.  Our pool is still just a little bit cold (and in need of cosmetic work), so we heat just the hot tub a little bit and they are happy to float around in there for quite awhile.

I usually get to sit and chat with a friend I met at my moms group.  We never really look at each other because we are both watching our kids to make sure their heads are above water, but it's nice to see someone I know a little bit.

Tim has been trying to make it to as many lessons as possible too.  It's good practice for him because Cate and Timmy are signed up for a survival swimming course in June/July.  I do not intend to be there much.  I can't handle it, so we agreed, when I signed them up, that he would make it a priority to take them.  Yikes.

It's a little bit crazy when we get home from swimming around 5:15 because C&T always want to ride their bikes, we need to eat dinner, have a bath and walk the dog, but the bonus is that swimming is just so tiring and they are usually tucked in bed right on time.