Photos, Sick and Swimming

We've been so busy lately!  Sorry for the delay in posting.
Saturday morning we went to an event and had our Christmas photos taken.  As expected, Christian was busy checking out the lights, chairs, backdrop, you name it.  We had three people behind the photographer making faces, telling him to say "cheese," "three", anything to make his mouth form like a smile.  He did smile some and I just hope the photographer caught at least one good photo that I will be able to use for our Christmas cards.

He did look very handsome in his dress clothes. I had such a hard time deciding what I wanted the photo to be: formal dress clothes, casual jeans and sweater, pj's with a stuffed animal, on and on my mind raced, trying to think of the perfect fit for us. I decided to go with the formal dress clothes so then the challenge began to see what we already had that would look right and what, if anything, did I have to buy.  I needed a sweater for Christian and shopped all Friday afternoon (yes I waited until the last minute).  I finally found a cute sweater at a store called "Once Upon a Child."  People had told me about it and I hadn't had the chance to go there yet and I was happy I did. The red long sleeved knit sweater had off white strips at the sleeve ends and around the crew neck.  It had an off white band with black snowflakes that went across the chest and around the back.  He had black cordurory pants and I had to buy a black turtleneck. He looked so grown up in his dress clothes and thought he was handsome, he kept looking in the mirror :)

I ended up having a migraine that stretched from Friday to Sunday, which was not fun at all. I managed to get us to the photos during a short migraine reprieve and then it subsided enough for me to take Christian to the park Sunday late afternoon. Whenever he slept, I slept. Thank goodness he didn't wake up in the middle of the night last night to ask me to cover him up with his blankets, which he usually does twice a night. I think getting a full uninterrupted night's sleep helped me alot!

Tonight was our second night of swim class where he's in the pool by himself. He had been talking about it all weekend and this morning, telling me he was a big boy because he swam by himself.  He runs up to the building, jumps around with so much excitement I could barely get his swimsuit on him and races out the door to the pool.  He wanted to get in immediately, but another class was finishing, so we had to wait. That was our undoing, the wait. By the time his class was ready to begin, he did NOT want to get into the pool. Once again, it took about 10-15 minutes of coaxing before he would get in, and even that was under a little bit of protest.  He finally enjoyed it but would suddenly look at me, start crying and wanting out of the pool.

Now the class guidelines say that sometimes it's best if the parent is not in sight, and then the child does much better. I just can't bring myself to have him out of my sight while he's in the pool because I am so nervous he will go under the water and the instructor won't see him because she's working with the other kids.  I've gotten reassurances from other parents, but nothing's been said to make me stay away from that pool.  I hope he does better next week, but if he doesn't, he's at least getting in the water for a little while which is a tremendous thing in itself due to his complete terror of water when I first brought him home. 

He's progressing in everything by leaps and bounds and I am so proud of him. He's talking better every day, learning his letters and numbers and I've noticed he's making up stories about his toys, using his imagination. It is all so intriguing to experience the world all over again through his eyes.  He has my heart :)
~Amy