Team Tyler!

Today was the day!! My 5 year-old baby's first swim meet!

First let's get some shots of the dynamic duo...

Hmmm. Let's try again.

One more time.

EVAN!!!!!

Finally. Dang!

Ok, now let's add Dad.
Crap.
Try again.

Come on, Evan!!!

Finally.

Seriously cute.

Waving to his adoring fans.

Still waving...

Practicing some stroke techniques before the event.

Take your mark!

And we're off to the races:

Colin even cheers him on!!! (around :30...right in front)

Sadly, some of us didn't have a great meet. When you've been on top for a while, the fall comes hard when you have an off day. And he did. Just didn't have it today. Beat by a teammate in 3 out of 4 events, and it hurt. Finished strong in his last event (25 Free) and won 1st though.

It's hard to teach your kids to lose with grace, but it's a lesson they absolutely need to learn. You don't win every race. Not in swim meets... Not in life. 

Someone let me know how you teach them that because I don't feel like I did a very good job at it today.  

At any rate, it was still a great meet. I know one little boy who didn't care where he placed, and neither did his parents. Great job, Tyler!!!

PT with Crazy 3...

Silly Mommy booked an 8:00 am Physical Therapy session and then realized that all 3 kiddos would be present for the festivities.

FAIL

Potential for disaster in smallish PT room with my 3 sons = HIGH

Desperate times call for desperate measures...

A twenty spot!!!! What's this for?

Bribery... 7:58 am stop for candy. Strict orders to select 3 smallish bags.

 Meanwhile, Tyler serenades us with "Take it off! Everybody take it off!" 

Thanks Ke$ha. (Don't think for a minute that I won't be warning my boys about your type soon...)

That's right, Colin. No touching the machine! Good boy.

 One of these faces is not like the others...

 Finally, Colin agrees to share and all is right with the world again. Poisons of choice:

Evan = Twizzlers

Colin = Peanut Butter M & Ms

Tyler = Sour Patch Kids

 My treat = E-stim/Ultrasound machine  + coffee

 I either have a tree trunk for a leg or an extremely small pinhead. My vote is for freakishly small head. Brain has *definitely* shrunk in size since having children.

 The PT tech was kind enough to bring the boys puzzles. The boys were kind enough to play with them for 23 seconds, then declare boredom and leave me to clean up the pieces. Thankyouverymuch, kids.

Just when you think Monday can't be MORE fun, it's time to take 2 of the kids to the dentist! What a treat! 

How's your Monday?

Just another scorcher Saturday...In El Centr-hole

I've pretty much accepted that between running, swim meets and having 3 small children, I will never be able to sleep in again.

Today's flavor... 5:00am.
Boo.

And an hour later, we're off to the El Centro Invitational Swim Meet.

A few miles of this:

Nearby Imperial Sand Dunes. Apparently, they filmed part of Return of the Jedi here. Cool.

A couple of these:

Annoying Border Checkpoint Station. Dude, do we look like illegal aliens in our Honda Odyssey with a military officer sticker attached to the windshield?

A whole lot of this:

Pretty.

And ta da! We've arrived in the worst place to live in the United States. 

El Centr-hole, er, I mean... El Centro, Ca.

Worst dressed timers too.

Wow.

That's ok. I made up for the bad dressing in El Centro with my rad boymom shirt. I have two boymom shirts, and I need a lot more. I get compliments EVERY TIME I wear one. EVERY TIME. Yep, got one today.

 

Shout out to fellow boymom and running blogger Momma K gotzt the runs who is a Cali rep for boymom. Check out her blog and boymom.

What can I say about this meet except that once again, I am in awe of my big boy.

Mike and another swim dad cheering Evan on in the 100m IM.

It looks like there's no other swimmers in the event. That's because Evan was so far ahead of the other boys it wasn't even funny. He actually lapped one kid (DOI!). Truth be told, he didn't just win the 7-8 year-old division. He beat all of the 9 and 10 year-olds and would have finished 2nd place amongst the 11 and 12 year-old boys!!!

So, so proud of that kid. He won all 5 of his events today. 

So proud of all my boys... (I know. They look like angels here, but meets are actually PAINFUL. The little ones are BORED SILLY.)

We know it stinks for them and try to treat them accordingly.... With treats.

Black cherry vanilla shaved ice. That's what I'm talkin' about!

We even capped off the afternoon with....

Rat Bastard

Now that's love. 

Next up... Tyler competes on Tuesday!! I am giddy thinking about the video I'm going to take of it. He will likely do a cannonball off the starting block (I'm not kidding). Can't wait!!

And oh by the way, Heartbreak Ridge is in 11 weeks!!! 1:43 or BUST.

Summer INSANITY

What's that Army saying again? Besides "BEAT ARMY!" of course.

We do more before 9 am than most people do all day, is it?

I think they're talking about Mommy *not* Army.

Let's begin the day:

4:50 am-Rise and shine

5:15 am-Head out the door for a hilly 8-miler. Curse at the heat and unusual humidity upon leaving house.

5:15-6:25 am-Sweat ass off on run.

6:25-6:35am-Stretch

6:36 am-Send e-mail to coach complaining about heat.

6:37 am-Complain again about heat to husband. Kiss husband goodbye as he leaves for MANDATORY green belt training courtesy USMC (Bahahahahaha!).

6:47-6:57 am-Ice old lady hip.

6:58 am-Run around like crazy woman herding cats. Listen to INCESSANT whining about outfits, teeth brushing, not being able to wear flip-flops to school, more whining from Tyler about how Colin gets to stay home (has a fever) while he has to go to AWFUL preschool where he has a GREAT time every day, etc.

7:19 am-Check weather on iPhone...immediate regret. Curse weather.

F*CK

7:21 am-Have Tyler take random garage photo of me to put him in a better mood... Distraction SO works with this kid.

• Leaning Tower of Allison. Also, I have no idea why my headlights are on. It's at least 85 degrees in the garage at this point.

7:33 am-Drop off Evan at Bass Fishing Camp (which he LOVED this week). I figured it could have gone either way. Last year he was MISERABLE at the Diamondbacks baseball camp. I mean M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. This camp was $60 (about 1/4th of the cost of the baseball camp) and he had a TON more fun.

Caught a baby catfish yesterday!

7:35-7:45 am-Exhausting 10 minute ride to the Marine Corps Base. Listened to a plethora of bitching/whining/fighting from Colin and Tyler. Here's a snippet for your reading pleasure:

Tyler: "You're DUMB!"

Colin: "I'm not DUMB! I'm Colin Johnson! You're DUMB!"

Tyler: "I'm not DUMB! I'm Tyler!"

Repeat X 5 minutes.

Breathe. Try not to swerve van into oncoming traffic on the other side of the freeway.

7:45 am-Arrive to childcare. Fight with Tyler about putting his shoes on. Listen to screaming and crying about shoes. Start wondering if someone thinks I'm beating him with all the racket going on inside the van.

What? You mean you don't drive around with an empty Lego container in your car?

7:55 am-Finally. Shoes are on. Grouchingly walk across parking lot to class.

8:08 am-FINALLY exit building after emotional, clingy goodbye from Tyler. (???) My money says he was fine about 2-1/2 minutes after I left. That's how it was yesterday at least... 

8:10 am- Colin falls in parking lot. Again. Just like he does nearly every day.

8:13 am-

Emotional from hand injury sustained during fall

8:23 am-

Oh thank God. Mama and Colin need a hit.

8:30 am-

...and all is right with the world. Peace, serenity and sanity arrive at 8:30 am sharp.

(Yes, I am *that* mom who soothes her child with a cake pop for breakfast.)

PS-Pay no attention to the complete and utter disgustingness of the car seat straps. 

Wacky Wednesday

A few weeks ago we took the boys to a ghost town!

'Bout 40 miles NE of Yuma. Also not sure why Evan is standing like that. Effeminate much?

Anyway... We saw lots of interesting sights.

Super creepy mannequin cowboy

An outhouse trio

Random bear attached to wall

Levis from the 1890s

Say What?

I'm not thinking that this is the glory hole I'm envisioning.

You've come a long way, baby!

Summer is in full effect, and the Johnsons now have a home away from home:

Marcus Pool

Laying on the hot pavement after swimming doesn't sound good to me, but these kids seem to love it. Apparently, it feels great. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

They even lay there with snacks.



Saturday was the kick-off meet for the Sandsharks. While Evan still practices with the year-round team (Yuma Heat), he competes in the summer league meets as well. We're hoping that Tyler will be ready to compete in July. Yesterday, the pool was finally warm enough-after a week of 100+ temps- so he wanted to get back in (he DID NOT want to swim last week during practice). He also saw some little swimmers (like himself) competing and thought it looked fun.

Evan had a fantastic meet. The progress he's made in 21 months of consistent swimming (3 times per week) is simply incredible. 

See for yourself!

THEN: 9/26/09-25 yard Freestyle... 31.93 seconds... 4th out of 4 (not to mention that he actually got DQ'd from 3 out of 4 events for various infractions: doing wrong stroke in event, doing butterfly arms with breaststroke kick, etc. HA!!!)

NOW: 6/18/11-25 yard Freestyle...17.46 seconds....1st Place!

It was also a day of PRs in his other strokes:

25 Butterfly-19.30 seconds (old PR-35.35)... 1st Place

25 Breast-23.09 seconds (old PR-31.66)... 1st Place

25 Back-23.00 seconds (old PR-25.25)... 2nd Place

We're so proud (even Colin is cheering in the most recent video!), and we love seeing Evan's enthusiasm grow for the sport. He told me that he got up on the blocks before his events and told himself, "Evan, you can do this." 

How awesome is that? Positive self-talk in a 7-year old. 

Big things coming from this little guy...

Escape from Disneyhell...

Been busy since my last blog entry!

Someone turned 5:

Please excuse the poor picture quality. The video camera takes CRAP pictures apparently.

Voila. Brownie Birthday Pizza for my brownie lovin' boy . How cute is this?

The next day we went to Disneyland. I'd LOVE to say it was a magical experience, but yeah... This pretty much sums it up.

I'm SO OVER these long lines.

We will NEVER do Disney during the summer ever again. Lesson learned. 

Too. Many. People. 

Too. Many. Lines.

Too. Many. Meltdowns.

I think the kids really need to be a little older as well. They each wanted to ride different rides and they each had different height restrictions, which limited them on some of the rides.

Good times were had at various points during the day (eventually) by all, however.

Love me some Autopia. Thanks for the whiplash, bud!

Up next... Evan KILLS it at his first Sandsharks meet. Stay tuned... So proud of him!