Team Gray!

Imani has just finished the penultimate piece of music in the Suzuki 1 book. To give you some perspective, Xay has just finished the 2nd piece in the Suzuki 2 book. Imani may pass him very soon. We’ll see how she does with the harder material.

I have a few clips of her progress. The first one is from last month. Imani mastered Christmastime Secrets, the third to the last piece in Suzuki 1 a little while ago.

The second clip is Imani gaining control of the Suzuki Theme Song, the penultimate piece in the first book. Yanni helped her get over the performance hump.

I am horrified when I look at that fingering! The way I teach piano is baffling. I make sure they know what the music sounds like, and let them figure out how to play it. At a lesson, I will correct poor fingering. Yanni doesn’t care about incorrect fingering. I guess it’s not time to turn my studio over to her! After a little finger correction, Imani will be able to move onto the last piece in the book. When Xay was practicing the first piece in book 2, Imani picked up some of that one, so I expect she will learn it quickly.

I plan to include video of the other children playing at another day. Imani is the most driven of my students, but all possess some sort of piano skills. Also forthcoming–Xay’s progress on guitar!

As I slowly moved through the water the other day, I thought about how swimming through a pregnancy was a dream come true.

When I was pregnant with Yanni (17 years ago), I had dreams of taking water aerobics or something during my 9 months. Before I knew it, the pregnancy was over, and I hadn’t stepped foot in a pool. In fact, I never even got a maternity swim suit until 2003 when I was pregnant with Esteban!

That was for taking Yanni to a water park in December, btw, one of the strange activities that I think is wonderful.

I finally began the whole pregnant swimming adventure the last time around. It was more like a continuation of my non-pregnant swim workouts, though, and I had to stop after only 2 months due to finances.

I was really out of shape by the time I got back to the pool this October. Being 4 months pregnant already didn’t help, so I took it slow. I thought I could start out swimming 500-700 yards and build up to the 2000 that I had stopped at back in 2006.

In the past when I climbed in a pool pregnant, I was thrown off by the buoyancy. I kept feeling like I was going to fall over or float off the ground. I am used to kind of floating just below the surface at all times, but swimming with a belly is like having a kick board or a pool buoy at all times. I love that! I feel like I’m a much better swimmer now. I’m also getting pretty slow. It used to be that I would be influenced by people around me to swim faster and blow myself out. Not any more. I continue at my snail’s pace, no matter who’s around. I find the breathing and what not much easier to manage when I’m not trying to beat someone.

That old maternity suit was riding up a few months ago. I found a bigger one online for $10. I also bought an old lady swim cap to keep my hair drier in this cold winter. The cap actually cost more than the suit, and it did a good job of keeping the top of my head dry. Then one day I lost it. I must have dropped it at the Y or whatever. I started wearing Yanni’s fancy silicon cap, and found that my hair was really dripping at the end of a swim session. On my birthday, I mentioned to Curtis that I couldn’t find any old lady swim caps in town, and he asked me why I hadn’t just ordered another one. I mumbled something about punishing myself for losing the old one, and how I would get around to ordering a new one (now that I had permission!) Curtis then sent me this link. I was in old lady swim cap heaven! I ordered a black cap with blue flowers, to match my suit, and I couldn’t resist a fully flowered black cap either. The babies helped me pick out my caps, and we were giddy ordering them.

The caps came in the mail Monday, and I tried out the one with the blue flowers on Tuesday. I was disappointed to note that my new suit is so faded that the blues don’t match, but of course wearing out your suit is proof that you are actually out there working, so I didn’t sweat it too hard.

I had hoped to at least work my way up to swimming a mile this pregnancy. That’s 1800 yards, according to the Y pool. I was pretty much on schedule to hit that mark if I added 100 yards each week. I made it up to 1200 before I took off a few weeks because of the flu. I am able to comfortably swim 1200 now, and I don’t have enough weeks before the due date to slowly get up to that mile. I might just continue to add yards until delivery, just to see how far I can get.

Tuesday, I heard that loud man at the pool. I don’t see well without my glasses, so I can’t be sure what he really looks like. But he sounds like the man that I bumped into (literally) a couple years ago. We had been sharing a lane, and he said we would circle swim, and my bad eyes told me that he was swimming down and back, so I did that. He really yelled when we smacked heads. I was so embarrassed, and have never shared a lane with him since. I heard him a few lanes over on Tuesday. Then, during a break in swimming, he called over to me, “You have a pretty nice butterfly!” I was surprised. The butterfly is the one stroke I’ve never been formally taught. I have watched the kids swim it, and asked them for how to do it, but that’s all. He continued, “I can’t do it at all. And the fact that you are able to get above water is pretty impressive.”

Woa. Curtis had told me that everyone must notice this very pregnant woman who comes and swims for a long time. Some people at the pool have commented on that as well. But since I can’t see well, I assume nobody else can either. I wonder if people are actually watching me. It’s a good thing I can’t see them watching, because I don’t think I could continue to swim with all those eyes on me. But on the other hand, the water calls me. I can’t wait for the next swim session.

And I can’t wait to use the pool to get back in shape after the baby.

We are supposed to be done with basketball. That’s what it said on the schedule. The tournament was over the weekend. Then I saw in the fine print on the game schedule thingy that the team that wins their round gets to go to some other city NEXT weekend to play the championship game. That would be the State Championship game. And Yanni’s team is the only team of all the local homeschool teams that won their game! It was exciting, as they played a team that had beaten them twice, most recently last week.

So, despite all the trash talking I did about I hoped they would lose their game SO WE COULD BE DONE WITH BASKETBALL ALREADY, I might try to take myself to the state championship game. By then I’ll be 38 weeks pregnant–nothing else to do right? Certainly not have a baby. I mean, given my history, that would be too much to ask, right?

So in all my spare time of late, I’m trying to get together a basketball club for Xay. Remember him, the child that’s really into basketball? Whose season has been over since early January? Well, I lined up a coach, (Daddy), and I got three of his friends to say they’ll play, and I’m procrastinating calling other friends and former teammates. I want to get this thing started before baby, so I better get rolling. I lined up a gym, so most everything’s in place. Just that pesky issue of a team. . .

And in other news, Yanni blogged a new post today. Go over and check her out; her writing has personality. Also, check out my sister-in-law’s blog. She is also a talented young writer. Not that we’re trying to take over the web or anything.