Monday, July 28, 2008

Up With The Birds

The boys have always been early risers. I think there's a lot of George Pavkov blood in them because they are awake and would be out of bed at the crack of dawn if we'd let them. When Stephen was three, we had to buy him a digital clock and teach him that he was not allowed out of his bed until the clock showed 7:00. I guess we forgot one small detail: the 7 had to be at the front of the numbers! We heard him playing downstairs one morning at 4:30 and couldn't figure out what was going on. When questioned, he simply replied, "But my clock DOES say 7! It says 4 - 2 - 7!" Now he knows that 7:00 means that only the first number counts.

Anyway .... this morning was the first day of swimming lessons for the summer. I wanted to have them early because the boys are always up anyway, so why not get the lessons out of the way and then we can still have the rest of the morning for whatever. We have the first lesson of the day: 8:30am. We have been so blessed by having this early bird class because Timothy is the only one in his class!! This is his first time taking lessons and he was NOT thrilled about this whole idea in the first place. Now with one-on-one instruction (and a fantasticly patient and encouraging teacher), he went from not wanting to put his feet in the pool this morning to being in the middle of our friends' pool with water up to his waist in the afternoon! For this reason alone, I am thankful that my guys are up with the birds in the morning! Who wants to get their kids ready for swimming lessons at 8:30 in the morning during summer vacation?! ME!!

We'll be at our early morning swimming lessons for the next two weeks. My boys will have been up, dressed, fed, and taught before most other kids are even out of bed! I'm thrilled with having our lessons done early, but I never thought about the one negative of this whole thing: what do we do with the rest of the day?!

9 comments:

liz said...

Swim! Clean toilets! Go to the library! Have rest time! (Can you tell my agenda for the day has been given to me by other people?)

Good for Timothy and his one-on-one instruction!

Martha said...

Who told you to clean the toilets this morning?

Ohio_Momto3boys said...

UGH! Early risers! Remember the day when we got to sleep as late as possible? Ah well... not sure I'd enjoy it if I could do it.

LindaSue said...

I think if someone told me to clean toilets, I'd show them where the cleaning supplies were and tell them to do it themselves!

Anonymous said...

I vote for swimming! WE had to work in the greenhouse until Grandpa went to work and then we would spend the whole afternoon- SWIMMING!

Anonymous said...

Cleaning toilets (at anytime during the day...or night) really isn't a chore if you use Watkins Toilet bowel cleaner!
Enjoyyour early risers. We were often at swimming lessons before 9AM. I wolunteered as the kids took lessons. Then often a picnic in the park followed. (Before we went home to stem green beans or something exciting like that.

Unknown said...

I got to sleep in today. My kids didn't wake up until 6 AND there's a holiday here today, so no school! Is no school a break for the parent or not? Not sure about that one. Anyway, the cultural definition of sleep/rest is different here. One doesn't necessarily have to get rest all at one time (like overnight) to be defined as good. Hmmm. I guess I'll always be a foreigner in that regard.

liz said...

No one told me to clean toilets--I just looked in them--yuk! And not just mine; visitors have been here. Hence, the other people. My kids can--and do--clean toilets. And we learned a new method at camp: one can of Coke, let it sit for an hour. We haven't tried it yet.

Karen said...

Now the theme seems to be toilets and not swimming, so, being an experienced mother of ALL BOYS, I'd have them learn how to clean toilets as soon as possible!...maybe even BEFORE swimming!