Stings and things

Another swim meet is in the books!

Here's Alexander, doing very well on his breast stroke (he ended up in third place overall, which is pretty cool—I think he got third last week, too):

Zoë had a bit of a harder time this meet—her goggles kept coming off on her entries (which was tricky and difficult) and she had some hard events (a 100-IM and a 50-fly, for example), plus she moved up an age group and is on the smaller side of things this year. But I'm sure she'll find a good stride soon enough! It's good to be challenged.

She's all the way over in lane 5 of this picture:

Here's Phoebe watching the meet:

And enjoying some time sitting on Rachel's lap (this is our very last swim meet with Rachel):

It was our senior celebration night, so the kids had a lot of fun. The seniors always "throw" their free relay and get really silly, racing in dress-ups and breaking all the rules. Alexander was howling with laughter beside me, saying, "I think our coaches have lost their minds!" and calling out all their infractions (I was judging this event...and it was a real hoot). The little kids got to throw balls into the pool at the end and then they all jumped in a played. 

We were out late, late, late! Here are the kids posing by the sign at the end of the evening:

And here's Phoebe posing by the sign in the morning when we arrived at the pool for fun Friday:

Zoë was thrilled to have been mentioned three times during Fun Friday. First she was selected as swimmer of the week for her age group (for having a good attitude and trying harder events—like the IM) and then her joke was selected as the winner for this week (she won a Chick-Fil-A gift card) and then she was given an honourable mention for the candy guessing game (there were 31 candies in the jar and she guessed 32, but the person who won guessed 30 because they didn't go over).

Phoebe was also excited to be chosen as swimmer of the week. Her coach is Tenley and she told everyone that Phoebe came to practices with a wonderful attitude this week and said yes to everything, even though the water was cold, and even kicked the whole 25 yards across the pool (with a kick board)! She's on the far right, below:

We talked to her about having "Yes!" days at swimming, instead of polite "no, thank you" days because we're at swim practice to try hard and new things. 

(Plus Daddy told her that if she didn't say yes to her coach she wouldn't get to have any screen time in the afternoons after swim practice).

Lo and behold, trying hard pays off! She's made great progress and is looking forward to swimming with Tenley next week.

In addition to both being selected as swimmers of the week, Zoë and Phoebe also both got stung by bees this week!

On Wednesday, I thought I had gathered up all the kids and their things so we could head home from River Station pool (the RS of JBRS), but I guess I only grabbed Alexander's and Phoebe's things. When we went by the tennis court (where she was playing baseball with her friends) to tell Zoë we were ready to go, she finished taking her turn at bat and then skipped off to the pool to grab her things...but showed up at the van a few minutes later completely empty handed (and looking a little shell-shocked). 

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I think I just got stung!" she said through gritted teeth.

Sure enough, she'd been stung by something when she'd hastily grabbed her pile of things.

We found some sting relief pads in the first aid kit, which Zoë held on her finger while I shook out her stuff. Then we headed home to get some ice on it (she had a piano lesson in the afternoon, which was a little rough, but her teacher was understanding about it).

Then today we were at the Jones Bridge pool (the JB part of JBRS), Phoebe had decided she was finished swimming and was sunbathing beside the pool. I wasn't paying a ton of attention to her because she wasn't in the water, and was just chatting with my friend, but then she ran up to me screaming about her leg. She honestly had no idea what had happened to her, but after a quick inspection it was pretty clear she had been stung by something.

My hypothesis is that some sting-wielding creature landed on her leg, which felt tickle-y...and when she reached back to scratched that itch...well...*sting* Phoebe's theory is that she sat on a dead bee that "had its butt stinger-side up." Who knows who is right?

We didn't have any sting relief in the first aid kit at this pool, but my friend had an emergency stash of Oreos in her pool bag (which definitely helped) and I texted home to ask people to have an ice pack ready for her when we pulled up. She was met with a full-service care crew!

She iced her leg for a long time and is feeling much better! 

We finally have our pack-out date (June 18) so while the little kids snuggled on the couch, keeping ice packs on Phoebe, while having some screen time, the rest of us were packing and packing and packing. 

So we went to Cook Out for dinner since we haven't been for a long time and Rachel wanted to go while she was out here.

Over all I'm a little sad about Rachel's visit home. We had company the first week. And then I went to Europe. And then Rachel went to Florida. And then Benjamin went to YM camp. And then Miriam will be at YW camp next week. I feel like we've hardly all been home at once—there's just too much going on! 

But that's okay. We'll get through it. 

I wanted to take a picture of the girls with their signs when we got home, mostly because I had missed getting a picture of Phoebe with her sign at Fun Friday. So, here's Zoë with her sign:

And here's Phoebe with her sign (she's checking with her finger to verify that she is, in fact, smiling...which she's not doing, but she is baring her teeth, so that should count, right?):

And here she is finally looking at me:

And here she is realizing that she'd disturbed an ant's nest and her shoes were rather rapidly being flooded with angry ants (doh!):

"I'm having quite the day!" she wailed as I carried her down the driveway (after ripping her shoes off her feet and hurling them across the cul-de-sac, wiping all the ants off her legs, etc.).

"You are having quite the day!" I agreed. 

Poor thing. 

She was rather willing to go to bed, which was a nice treat. 

Granted, she did get up at 6:00 this morning (which was far too early for me after getting home from the swim meet at 11:00 last night), so her day was also rather long. She was so nice, though, because when she got up at 6:00 and I told her that I wasn't ready to get up yet, she decided to read to herself until someone was ready to get up with her. 

So she went back to her own room, turned on her reading lamp, and read stories to herself! 

Simply amazing! 

So many reasons to be proud of these girls today!

(Below are the pictures we got from Ms. Julie)