an asher post. because it's been a while.

I had the best time watching Asher learn to jump off the diving board and "swim" (kick his feet with his life jacket on, but I'll take it) to the ladder yesterday. This, from the boy who wouldn't let go of my neck last month. And it's not as though he's had all of this practice. He just GOT IT yesterday. He realized the life jacket wouldn't let him sink, and away he went. Yay! I've been in a quandary all summer with the swimming pool. Asher was afraid to let go of me, and Silas had no fear at all, so taking them swimming alone has just been ... unnerving. Trying to keep Silas from jumping into oblivion while Asher is literally wrapped around my torso feels a lot like work, you know? Now that he's gained some confidence swimming will be a lot more fun for all of us.

What else ...

Want to hear something weird about me? There really isn't much that bothers me, really. I mean, plenty of things make me roll my eyes, but very few things genuinely stress me out. Except this - I need time with Brian and my kids. Need it, deep down. If I don't have time with them, to just hang out, I just get ... out of sorts. I'm like the dog, who paces the last half hour before Brian gets home every single day. Me too, Dog-Dog. Anyway, July was SO FUN, but the down side of traveling two out of three weeks is that my very part-time job became not so part-time during the weeks we were home. So, compound traveling and squeezing a month's worth of work into half that time, and I just haven't had many plain old days at home with my kids lately. The effects are apparent in my home. Asher, in particular, seems stressed by it (Asher and I have very similar temperaments, poor kid). So I'm excited that tomorrow is my last work day for the month. After tomorrow, we will have several plain old days in a row, with Silas, Asher, and me meandering along together. And beginning in August, we will get back into our very part-time routine. I feel as though we've accomplished something. Just one more day. Whew.

One more story -

Last week Asher filled his Kindness Chart with stickers, and earned a date with one of us at a place of his choosing. First of all, he asked if his brother could come on his date, which makes me think that the Kindness Chart worked. Asher and Silas have become friends this summer - which is mostly a function of time and maturity, but aided, I think, by rewarding the boys for speaking to each other rather than clobbering their brother as a means of communication. Anyway, Friday night was the big date, and since Silas was invited, it became a family date. Asher was thrilled. And he chose - are you ready for this? - not McDonald's, not Chuck-E-Cheese, but Olive Garden. "They have breadsticks," he clarified, several times. His entire meal consisted of salad, ice water, and more breadsticks than I dared to count. (Silas had four helpings of salad - four helpings! - a breadstick, and chicken fingers we brought from home. How tacky are we? But I'm so not paying five dollars for him to eat three bites of a kid's meal in a restaurant. Plus, Silas is allergic to tomatoes and cheese - what, exactly, would he eat in an Italian restaurant?)

So fun.