just keep swimming

With the last Wednesday down, I'm finally into the home stretch. Less than a week to go! Five days until Ricky gets here and six until the kids are off to Africa. I can't believe it's almost over, and I can't believe that I've made it this far. Compared to the past few days though, yesterday was a piece of cake. I really think that it's just one of those things where the kids act up in front of the parents to get attention, but nonetheless, it hurts! Yesterday morning, Thomas was being a total brat again, completely ignoring me when I asked him what kind of yogurt he wanted, etc. The second Christine walks out the door he's my best friend and oh "Gabrielle, look at me". I took them to sports, then to McDonalds. Christine met us there and then we all went to the swimming pool in Saint Tropez with Christine's best friend. It is a nice pool and I kind of wish that I had actually been going regularly since Christine pointed it out to me but it is way too hot and I wouldn't be able to swim laps in it anyways. I prefer the sea as it is. The kids had a swimming lesson with this really old guy. He was good with them and I could tell he's had a lot of experience (I mean come on the guy is like 50 and he's teaching swim lessons). But after they were finished with him I took over. I got Matthew to jump in without any flotation devices (I caught him of course) and I took him to the bottom a couple of times. Thomas is actually a really good swimmer although his kicks could use some work.

I wrote in my au pair letter that I would be willing to give swim lessons to the kids. I've talked about it with Christine and Nigel a couple times but they never followed up on it and Nigel doesn't want to turn on the pool heater or something. But after seeing me with the kids yesterday, Christine got really excited about it and wants me to give them a swim lesson on Saturday morning. She also wants me to perform a Synchronized Swimming routine on Sunday. Maybe as her Fete des Meres present? The pool is rather small for a synchro routine but I might try and put something together in the next couple days. I'm also working on making friendship bracelets for the kids and my friends and putting together the photo album for Christine and Nigel. I hope the pictures get here in time. Last time it took three weeks, but that is because I used the wrong address.

This week seems to be dragging by. All the hard things seem to be piling on top of each other and pulling me down. But despite feeling like the weight of Christine's world is on my shoulders (which I am sure is about 10 times heavier than the weight of my world with how much trash they produce every week), I just have to keep going like a wind up toy. When push comes to shove, I know I'll get through this. I just gotta keep swimming on through.