The Olympics and Katherine’s Scrapbook
I’ve been watching the Olympics just about every night, which explains my bleary eyes and tiredness in the mornings. This is probably because I have many fond memories of watching the games when I was a kid. I vaguely remember something about Mark Spitz when I was *really* young. And, I definitely remember Nadia, Olga and all the star gymnasts since 1976.
I suspect that Katherine will remember the 2008 Olympics for swimming and gymnastics. Thanks to TiVo, we’ve watched the big highlights of the games, and Katherine has been so impressed. She’s taken to flipping through our Seattle Times and Wall Street Journal to find swimming and gymnastics pictures. She’s also started her official 2008 Olympics Scrapbook. It consists of a dozen pages or so in a binder. The pages have carefully cut pictures glued to them…LOTS of glue. She’s got a cover page, a final page with the Olympic rings colored with dot paint and other art too. Tonight, she insisted on giving us the narrative of her book after dinner. She proudly told us about Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals, Nastia Luikin and of course…Shawn Johnson.
Allison has gotten into this with her own scrapbook. Her pictures are a little more ragged, and some random newspaper copy has made it into her book. But, she’s very proud of her work. Allison also told my mom the other day, “Pau-Pau, you’re taller than Shawn Johnson!”
Katherine’s First Violin Lesson
My mom said that it’s payback time for all the violin lessons and practicing she endured when Sharon and I were kids. ๐
I took Katherine to her first lesson this Monday. We brought her rented 1/10 violin and her Suzuki Book 1. Katherine was very serious and listened to her teacher explain how to hold the bow. They worked on that for several minutes. Then she played the open E and A strings – four 16th notes and 2 quarter notes – “I’m a little monkey” – over and over again. The teacher kept checking her bow hand before every iteration. Frankly, while I was proud of her progress, it was a real exercise in patience and tolerance.
The good news is that I can coach Katherine using the teacher’s techniques. My goal is to get 5-10 minutes of practicing in daily for now. Biggest challenge is fending off Allison who is insisting on her own lessons (talk about clutching that bow! I could barely pry it out of her hand.)
Swimming Continues
We’re wrapping up our second week of swim lessons this week. Despite the rain during class, the kids are getting more comfortable swimming. Allison can now swim about 10-15 feet under water, kind of like a frog. She takes a big breath, pops under water, and then re-emerges on the other side of the pool. Katherine is still working on this skill – often standing up to take a breath every 5 or 6 feet.
On Monday, Allison earned her first red ribbon which states, “I swam the width of the pool.” Katherine earned another purple ribbon, “I dived off the diving board.” It was mayhem in the car afterwards; Katherine was SO bent out of shape that she didn’t get the red ribbon tool. Today, she managed once to get across the pool without standing up and got her red ribbon.
Both kids dived (belly-flopped) off the diving board and swam to their instructor at the end of class. Very cool.