Out with School, In with the Pool

June means the end and beginning of a lot of things. First, my brother's last day of preschool is Friday. Next year he'll be a pre-K student (and the following year he'll be a kindergartener). We went to his preschool spring music performance. Thanks to me, my parents opted for the back of the room so I could roam freely so this clip is from a full gym's-length away. Bodie is wearing red shorts in the front row in the middle. He's got some impressive clapping and stomping skills.

June also means pool season! We've been enjoying the pool every day - and by enjoying I might also mean napping. And while my mom had a picture of me napping, I'd like to point out that my dad naps at the pool as much or more than I do.

June also means the start of BBQ season, something I'm quickly learning to love. We got together with our "East Coast Family" last Friday to kick off summer. The East Coast Family is a group of friends my mom has had since she lived in a house in Georgetown right after college. I'm told their parties were legendary, which I assume means "filled with old people" because they are all MUCH older than me. There are 14 kids in the group with the oldest being 14 and the youngest is currently me. Lucky us to have the best friends on the planet.

Baseball is in full swing (pun intended) around our house. Bodie's tball team, The Storm, is more than halfway through their season. He's improving each week and now has a pitch and return net in our backyard so he can practice. Don't tell Bodie, but I think my parents needed a break from tossing him the ball 2,000 times per day.

My dad and his buddies had a Home-run Derby, each trying to smash a softball over the fence. Let me tell you, these guys can hit...and catch...and throw. It was nothing like watching Bodie's team. These guys were awesome. Bodie and his friend Jack also got into the action. My contribution to the day was snacking on the baseballs...

 

Progress

Because so many people are asking, "Is Gates crawling YET?!?!" I thought I should provide another update. He has definitely made progress - see video - but I don't think anyone would call this a crawl. I like to think of it as a waterless belly flop in motion.

Watching the faces of people seeing him do this for the first time is really entertaining. His "method of motion" must look painful because everyone squinches their face up like they are watching a gory surgery on tv. Like I said before, physics are currently against him (big head, big belly), so I'm really proud of my little brother for his determination.

I'm including this second clip to underscore my point about his determination. Watch as he gets to the turn in the hallway and rather than give up because he doesn't know how to turn yet, he stops, drops, rolls, then continues on his way - pure genius! Keep going little brother, you'll conquer the crawl someday soon...

Bahamas!

I may have mentioned this once or a thousand times before, but I'm pretty sure I belong on an island. There's something about being surrounded by water, blue sky, and palm trees - they definitely call it paradise for a reason. We flew down to the Bahamas last weekend for a quick trip - my mom was itching to travel and my dad said we needed sunshine. 
We had two goals each day - sun and sleep; this was not an overachievers vacation. I am happy to report we reached both our goals. My typical day went something like this: wake up, eat, beach walk, swim, eat, swim, eat, night activity, collapse in bed...repeat. Gates' routine was similar except his included pool or beach naps under some elaborate sun-blocking contraption my parents created out of pool objects (see photo).
 
Pool, beach, basketball, more pool, ping pong, giant checkers, sand crab, more pool - you get the idea. Here are a few of the highlights...

   

  

The obligatory family jumpers (notice I got air in the second one...)

To Crawl or Not to Crawl

To crawl or not to crawl, that is the question everyone is asking about my brother Gates these days. I can tell you for sure, the current answer is not to crawl and boy does it make him mad. I'm no physics major (yet), but let's just start with the obvious...29"long, 23lbs in weight, and a 98% head size - this is not an easy object to move. How would I know you ask? Well, because occasionally I grab him under the arms and drag him to different rooms in the house; it's like moving a small country. So I have great sympathy for him trying to move himself - it's tough.

Everyone who sees his effort says, "Oh look at him, he'll crawl any day now!" For the record, people have been saying this for about 3 months. I'm beginning to think "any day" means Christmas.

Here are some of his favorite faux crawl positions...

The grab and pull up 

The rock back and forth

 

 The imitate

And my favorite... The plank (he can do this for over a minute!)

 

Not crawling isn't a bad thing EXCEPT he really, really wants to. He's mastered what my mom calls the sit-and-spin. He's sits in one location and does complete 360 degree spins in a desperate attempt to move forward. He often looks confused after several spins. Sometimes he pushes himself at rapid speed...backwards. THIS is one of the saddest things to watch. He can be only a few inches from an object at the beginning, start pushing, and then end up 8-10 feet from it; all the while getting more and more mad.

 

Not to worry Gater, you'll eventually get it. But in the meantime, thanks for being so entertaining!