April highlights include:
- Luke’s birthday
- Spring swim camp
- Cousins participate in annual Easter egg hunt
- Pine box derby trophy
- Lilah performs with Tory at talent show
Lilah
This month, Lilah got a chance to swim every morning during the week of spring break. She participated in the “Fish” swimming group at the YMCA which is the last group you swim in before moving on to the swim team. Even though these group lessons are supposed to be for learning and fun, Lilah uses them as an opportunity to compete. Any time the teacher would have them swim or kick the length of the pool, Lilah would take the lead and look backwards from time to time to see what kind of distance she was putting on her “competitors.” There was one girl in the group, however, that gave Lilah a challenge when it came to kicking — here is a nice shot that captures the moment.
This was also the month Lilah participated in a talent show with her friend Tory. This was the culmination of months of practice and preparation. As I’ve mentioned before, the plan was for Lilah and Tory to perform a duet of the Toy Story song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Well, not only did they sing the song, they also wore matching outfits (complete with their own custom made T-shirts imprinted with both their names and the words “Best Friends”), and performed a choreographed dance routine with spins, dramatic gestures, and hand clapping.
They definitely put on a great show. What wasn’t so great was the drama that ensued afterward. Apparently, Lilah was under the impression that a bouquet of flowers would be awaiting her from mom and dad after the performance, because “everyone else” got flowers. Keep in mind that everyone else consisted of a handful of girls. Since we had driven separate cars, Cathy took the kids home and then told me how she finally had to yell at Lilah on the way home because Lilah kept insisting “everyone” got flowers except her (with the word everyone given plenty of emphasis). Luckily, by the time I arrived home with sweets, the drama had been resolved and everything was again back to normal.
It’s interesting how when the kids are young they can be sweet one minute and totally turn on you the next. An example of the sweet side came early one morning when I was riding my bike up a hill next to Lilah’s school. Class hadn’t started yet, so there were dozens of kids in the schoolyard. The playground area is far enough away where I can’t really distinguish individual faces in the yard, but I can discern bodies and what they’re wearing. So when I was chugging up the hill past the school, I saw an arm extend and begin waving toward me. I immediately recognized that figure as Lilah and waved back. That definitely brought a smile to my face and gave me the energy to keep pedaling strongly up the hill. Since the initial wave, this has developed into somewhat of a morning routine whenever I ride past the school and that’s pretty sweet.
Luke
Luke had a great month of his own: he lost more teeth, celebrated his sixth birthday, and won a trophy for the best designed car in the box car derby. For his birthday, we gave Luke what he’d been wanting more than anything else — the Lego Police station with more than 950 pieces to put together. What was cool was watching Luke methodically build most of the station himself. He was so into it that he lost all sense of time and would only begrudgingly take breaks to eat or go to the bathroom.
The station includes offices with phones and coffee makers, jail cells with robbers and escape hatches, security cameras, vehicles, policemen, and all sorts of other items that facilitate mock jail breaks and rescues once it is built. With very little help from me, we completed building the station in roughly two days. Luke was, of course, thrilled with this gift as well the other Legos he received from family and friends. And, in what came as a surprise to us, he insisted on opening his gifts in front of family and friends. We figured he would be too shy for that sort of public display, but we were wrong. He surprised us with his new found confidence and that was nice to see.
What I was really looking forward to this month was competing in the Pine Box derby, but we had a “slight” change of plans. When faced with the choice of participating in the race or going to his classmate’s birthdy party, Luke chose the birthday party. Oh well, we actually did get to compete via a surrogate who entered the car in the race for us. The good news is that Luke also had a chance to experience some racing in the practice session that was held two days before the official event. During practice, he had a great time. He must have raced his car more than 30 times as I kept watching him run to hand his car off to the guy at the starting line, then run to the end of the track to watch his car win, lose or draw. When it came time to the official race, our car did not win for speed, but we did win a trophy for best design in our group. Since I put in most of the work into building the car, I think I was more happy with the trophy than Luke. But hey, at least he did build a Lego set ;-).
That’s all for now. . . more next month!