Swimming Skills
Jared has always loved water. After hundreds of nightly baths and a few dozen trips to our community pool, Jared has developed a fearlessness in the water that sometimes unnerves me. He will cannon-ball into the pool as soon as we arrive, and then proceed to do all kinds of flops and flips and dunks and dives, grinning and gasping each time his head emerges. We need some constructive direction to this energy, I thought to myself as I watched his antics become wilder with each pool visit. So this July we put him in swimming lessons at the university. The result? I think we have found his new favorite activity! Some of his new swimming skills include back floating, elementary back stroke (arms and legs together), front crawl arms, and the beginnings of rotary breathing. Jared's teacher, Pat, is a university student who is really good with the kids. There were between 2-5 children in the class on a given day. But Jared didn't get bored waiting for his turn with the teacher. He amused himself by doing continuous head dunks ("Blast offs") in which he would totally submerge himself for 5-7 seconds, then blast up through the water to the surface. His teacher was baffled by his audacity, telling me that he was "bound to become a collegiate swimmer or something." Well, collegiate swimmer or no, at least Jared is having fun in the water... and now he has something productive to work on when we go to the community pool.
Potty Skills
Just as the July heat brought swimming lessons, it also compelled us to stay inside most of the time. That seemed the best wasy to avoid the 110+ degree heat indexes that scorched central Illinois all month. One fine Monday afternoon about three weeks ago, as we were hunkering down at home enjoying our AC, Allison asked to use the potty. I humored her and let her try and, lo and behold, she used it! I thought it was just a lucky fluke. But a few minutes later she used it again! Three weeks, 10 pairs of princess underpants, and a handful of accidents later, Allison is now 90% potty trained. She can go to church, the grocery store, and even Grandma's house in underpants. I bought her a new pack of diapers just four weeks ago... Little did I realize that it would be the last time. Just one baby in diapers now. Woohoo!
Solid Food Eating Skills
This skill set took a little more work to learn. Thomas is now 7 months old and, as we did with Jared and Allison, we tried to start him on baby food at 6 months. It was a TOTAL failure. Whenever the spoon approached, he would clamp his mouth shut and avert his head. And if ever a bite did miraculously make it in, he would wrinkle up his nose, squint his eyes, and spit until he has purged his mouth of the mush. The pediatrician nailed him when she said, "Thomas has just decided that he doesn't like slime." She recommended that we skip the baby food altogether and give him normal solid foods that he can gum. We tried it, and now mealtime is much more pleasant for all of us! His favorites so far are plums and mango (in the mesh baby feeder), hot dog buns, and Baby Mum-Mums (an amazing little rice rusk baby treat that I discovered a few years ago). Mum-Mums today, Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow!
Auto-body Skills
Aspiring auto mechanic that I've always been, my new skill set involves the car. When we first bought our minivan, we noticed some small rust bubbles forming on the front of the hood. Since then I have made several attempts at repairing them--a job that has turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected. (After my first repair job rusted through, I discovered that the hood is rusted on the underside as well. After an hour of grinding away layer after layer of rust on one of our "little rust bubbles," we ended up sanding all the way through the hood!) I learned how to use a dremel and apply rust converter, then body filler, then regular primer, and then, finally, factory-match paint.
Here's what it looks like with 4 coats of the paint. Just a few more to go!
(As a side note, this project has drawn unexpected attention from the male community. As I was out in the parking lot sanding, the father of a nice Muslim family came over and offered to help me, because "it's always good to learn new skills." Another evening three 8-year-old boys crowded around me, asking what my detail sander was and how it worked and whether they could try it out. A few minutes later, the father of a nice African-American family from the other quad approached me. "Are you a mechanic?" he asked in surprise. Then he grinned. "I saw the long extension cord coming out of your door, and I thought to myself, 'I'm going to follow that and see where it leads!' And here you are!" So now you know how to attract the attention of the mechanically-minded in your neighborhood. Just pull out a sander and get to work.
Job Search Skills
I'm not sure how much of these skills Adam already has, but he's going to learn some fast! He is probably graduating in December... if he has a job lined up. He began the job search process this summer, and right now he's open to applying anywhere (though I'm voting we go further west). So if you hear of a microfluidics or bio tech chemistry job in your area, send us word... we could end up moving close to you!
(Here's Adam, hiking Mt. Hood the day after a job interview in Portland)
