Jumping and Diving

I took both of the boys to the pool this afternoon since it was about 90 degrees with about the same humidity. It felt great to get in the pool! After a busy afternoon with the boys, it was a great way to end the day and I got not one, but two surprises from my boys.

First, Brenden asked me if I would go to the shallow end and catch him. Brenden has been reluctant to leave the the area of the pool where he is able to touch and where he wanted to go was definitely over his head. I of course quickly said yes and was so pleased to see some of his comfort in the water coming back. After jumping to me at least 10 times, we then went down to the deep end for him to jump to me! I was only able to catch him once. I think he would have tried a few more times, but its kind of hard for me to tread water and catch a 3 year old while 8 1/2 months pregnant. He definitely had fun jumping to me and it was so good to see him smiling and being playful in the water again.

Next, Jake came over to me while I was taking a break and asked if I would catch him off the diving board! All summer he has been telling me he would, but always saying he would do it next time. Apparently today was next time. The first time he jumped I was out in the middle of the diving well to make him feel more comfortable. He jumped right in and didn't need any help from me. He proceeded to jump at least 10 more times with me on the side watching. He was so excited and had so much fun that even asked Chris after we got home if we could go back so he could show him.

I was able to get a few of the jumps on video, enjoy!

Arizona Part 2 - The Kids and Mana

So while I was in Arizona to coach, the kids were there to spend some quality time with their Mana - my mom. Needless to say, the kids, Jake especially, had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. And when the day came to jump on a plane and fly to Arizona the kids were ready to go and on some of their best behavior!

Most days I only got to see the boys when they woke up and before they went to bed. At first the boys were fine with this, but after a few days I think they started to actually miss me a little. They spent probably close to 90% of their time awake in the pool at my mom's. The other 10% they went to see Toy Story 3, came to the pool to visit me, and played in the house because of Monsoons. Because I wasn't around for much, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The boys had a blast. They both got lots of practice swimming and my mom was able to get her fill and then some. With Rylan coming soon we're not sure when we'll be able to make it back so I'm glad they got a good, long trip!

Arizona Part 1 - Coaching

As some of you may know, I just returned home from a 10 day trip to Arizona. The purpose of the trip was primarily for me to be able to attend JO and Age Group Nationals for Diving. The meet was being held at the University of Arizona where I went to school and was being hosted by my old coach Michelle Mitchell.

I was a little nervous to be going out to Arizona and especially for so long seeing that I was about 34 weeks pregnant when I left. Luckily my body seemed to hold up just fine and there were no signs of early labor. Of the 10 days in Arizona, 9 were spent at the pool coaching, at least 6 of those days were 12+ hour days, and all of them were in 90-100 degree heat. So it is pretty amazing that my body was able to hold up the entire trip, although by day 9 it sure felt like it was ready to give out and I was more than ready to return home on day 10.

To give you an idea of what I was doing I will take you through a typical day. Most days I needed to be at the pool around 7am, some days a little earlier and some a little later. My mom's house is about a 30-40 minute drive so I was usually up around 5:30am. When I arrived at the pool I would coach our divers for about an hour, 30 minutes dry land and 30 minutes in the water. At 8:30am those divers in the first events would have a warmup and I'd do some more coaching. Events started at 9am and went all day. I would spend the rest of the day going back and forth between coaching and judging, and sometimes both at once. Once the days events were over I would help coach an evening practice for those divers in the next days events, this usually ended around 8pm and I would hopefully be home by 9pm. Of course there were a couple of days where I was able to leave after prelims because we didn't have any divers in finals, but I think I would have rather had the divers make finals and have to stay the whole day.

Overall it was a very good experience. I got a LOT of judging experience and I got to watch some of the best coaches in the country in action. It was also great to see all the best age group divers in the country and see how our divers compared. I'm hoping to use all that I saw and learned to help evaluate my coaching in order make our divers better in the future. Also, some of our divers didn't dive as well as they had hoped to and I'm hoping that being at this meet I will be able to better prepare them for future meets.

Here are a couple of lovely pictures my mom snapped of me at the pool - 35 weeks pregnant!

New Bath/Shower

Well you might think with Jake, Brenden, and me gone for 10 days it was all laying around and play for Chris. If you thought Chris had a week and a half of nothing to do, you would be wrong. The last few days of our trip, Chris was home with his brother-in-law Todd doing some much needed work on our master bathroom.

When we were looking for a new house three years ago I desperately wanted one with a bathroom that had a big soaking tub. For those of you who don't know, I LOVE MY BATHS! I take at least one bath a week and during pregnancy its usually closer to 3-4 per week. Well, in our house search we found a great house that had almost everything we wanted, but sadly not a good master bathroom. So for the past 3 years I have been taking baths in our small, non-impressive, bath/shower stall. I have managed to get by and we tried doing a full remodel of the bathroom, but $25-30,000 was a bit out of our price range. So over the past few months Chris has been gathering the pieces, fixtures, whirlpool tub, tile, etc., to be able to remodel the bath/shower portion of the bathroom. With both me and the boys gone for so long it looked like the perfect opportunity to get the job done.

Chris and Todd worked on the Bathroom for 2-3 days and it came out beautifully! I couldn't be happier with the results. The tile work looks great, the tub works wonderfully, the fixtures are beautiful, and most importantly, I can finally lay back and relax with plenty of room for my whole body to enjoy a long soak in the tub! The only down side to all of this is that now the improvements needed for the rest of the bathroom are bit more glaring, but I've already ordered new cabinet hardware and plan to get some paint swatches to help with that!

Here are pictures of before and after:

Before:

After:

First Boat Trip

Last week my mom was able to get a last minute flight to come back to Michigan for a visit. Needless to say, this was a huge hit with the boys and very helpful to me. Turns out, Chris and I had quite a busy week planned and having my mom around really helped get us through.

On her last day here, she and my brother took the boys up to my Aunt Steph and Uncle Don's to go on their boat. Neither boys had been on a boat or gone swimming in a lake before, I've raised a couple of pool babies. We weren't sure how they would do and we were a little worried that Brenden might be too afraid to even go on the boat. Apparently after only about 10 minutes of getting comfortable, Brenden was happy to get on the boat and both boys had a great time. They each got turns driving the boat and they both swam for a bit in the lake. Below are some pictures my brother took of the day.

Lost tooth #2

Last week Jake lost his second tooth! It had been loose since he lost his first one back in May, but really didn't look like it was going to come out until last week. He was able to push it all the way forward to the point of falling out, but refused to pull it out. That is until last Wednesday at DK. When he got home that afternoon he showed me a bloody blanket from school and then opened his mouth wide to show me he had pulled his tooth out during quiet time at school. I was glad to see the tooth was out, but felt bad for the mess it must have caused the teachers at school. That night Jake and Chris got the tooth fairy book out again and marked down which tooth it was on his chart and put the tooth in the tooth pillow at bedtime for the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy brought Jake a gold one dollar coin and he was quite thrilled! He woke up and brought it to both Chris and I to show us and carried it around with him the rest of the day. It was another good experience for Jake, especially since he didn't swallow the tooth this time!

The only downer of the whole experience is that the new tooth that is coming in is back farther than his other teeth and very crooked! It doesn't bother Jake, which is good, but I have a feeling he's going to be needing braces in the future and that's no fun for anyone!

Updates

I know its been a few weeks since my last post, but we've been pretty busy here in the Eby house. Since my last post Jake has finished Safety Town and both boys finished the first session of swim lessons. Safety Town remained a hit with Jake and he's still talking about it 2 weeks later, he's even telling me our address and phone number so that he doesn't forget. They had a simple graduation where all the children sang the safety songs they had learned and got certificates of completion.

Swim lessons concluded great for Jake. The next level of classes was full, but the teacher managed to get the Community Ed Dept to add another class for Jake and another girl in his class. The next session started Monday and once again Jake is doing great. They've added backstroke to their list of skills and Jake can now make it across the width of the pool on his stomach and back. The teacher has already started the next group of skills with the class and encouraged us to sign him up for the third session since he's doing so good. Unfortunately, we're going to be in Arizona for the first week of the third session, but the instructor said to keep working on his skills and when he gets back we might still be able to get him in the the second week of the third session and be able to get it prorated.

Brenden didn't make quite as much progress with the swim lessons as we would have hoped, but I do think it was a good experience for him. He has still been reluctant to "swim" when we do go to the pool. He still wants to go, but tells me that he only wants to walk in the pool and not swim. There have been a few times where he gets a bit more daring and will inch along the wall to get to the deeper water. He still doesn't want to get his head wet, but is doing lots of practicing in the bath :-)

I've been quite busy with WISC diving at AACC and JO Diving with Legacy. We have had three dual meets so far for AACC and our fourth is tomorrow. The kids have been doing well and learning lots of new dives. I've been fortunate this summer to have one of my former high school divers, Caitlin Noonan, as my assistant coach. She has been great with the kids and allowed me to have some days off during this hot summer we've been having, its hard for me to be outside for 3 hours in 90 degree heat when I'm 7-8 months pregnant. She is also going to take over for me next week to cover our final dual meet next friday and championships the following week. I will be missing the last meet and championships to travel to Arizona with the Legacy divers for JO and Age Group Nationals.

June 30-July 3 the Legacy diving team traveled to Pittsburgh, PA to compete at zones in order to qualify for JO and Age Group Nationals. I had gone to Regionals with the team, but was unable to go to zones because of other work commitments at AACC. The team did great and qualified 15 divers! I was really sad I couldn't be there, but was able to get lots of updates from the parents, divers, and coach. I will be traveling with the team to Nationals, and I'm very excited! Nationals are being held at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where I went to school and where my mom lives now. The boys will be coming with me to spend some time with my mom so it will be like a little vacation as well. The boys are excited to spend some time out in Arizona and are looking forward to playing lots in Mana's pool! I'm excited to return to Tucson to see some old friends and really excited to experience my first summer nationals as a coach. However, I am a little nervous and wondering how I'm going to survive the heat while 34 weeks pregnant, I might be getting in the pool with the divers too!

And last for a Rylan update. I had my 32 week check up and everything looked good. I managed to gain four pounds this past month after not gaining any weight the month before. So far I have gained 17 lbs total, about half of what I had gained by this point with Jake and 10 lbs less than with Brenden. Apparently I have no trouble gaining weight in the winter months, but finding it a bit more difficult in the busy, hot summer. Everything measured right on track, 32cm fundal height, heart beat was strong and steady, and my weight gain was fine. She has also been head down now for over a month so will likely stay that way until delivery. The doctor wants see me in two weeks, but I'll still be Arizona so it'll have to be three weeks until my next appointment. I also made the rest of my appointments up to and past my due date, it really is getting close now. The doctor thinks there is a very good chance that I will go early again, but of course can't tell for sure or exactly when that would be. I'm definitely hoping for a little early again with how uncomfortable I've been, but really I'm just hoping to make it through the trip to Arizona, which the doctor didn't have any concerns about. Below are a few pictures of my growing belly.