Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Swimming like Pops

When Liam was little, he loved the pool. He would jump in anywhere and assume someone would catch him. His first swimming lesson at age three changed all of that, and he became very, very fearful of the water. Swim lessons this summer made a very little improvement.

Since starting swim classes at school, however, with what I assume to be adequate peer pressure, Liam has improved quite a bit. He wanted us to go to the pool the other weekend so he could show us how he swam underwater.

The biggest excitement of all, though, was when he managed to imitate Pops. Apparently, he had been trying unsuccessfully to sit on the bottom of the pool the way his grandfather does. When he eventually asked Matt about it, he was told he had to blow the air out of his lungs so he would sink to the bottom.

Now, not only is he really excited to go "swimming" at every opportunity, but he can sit on the bottom of the pool, just like his Pops.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Politico

A couple of weeks ago, we were notified by Liam's school that some of the political discussions going on at afterschool were getting a bit heated. We were asked to remind our children to use appropriate language and be respectful of other people's opinions. I figured this was just something going on in the upper grades, but it still made me laugh that instead of getting notices of vandalism or truancy, we were notified of heated polical debate.

Nonetheless, Liam did show interest in the election. He was amazed that someone voted for McCain, and very excited to cast his vote in the library on Tuesday. Now today, he informed me on the way to school that McCain chose a bad vice president (this did not come from Matt or me!).

On the way home he told me that McCain said, "I have been tested; he has not!". He also informed me that Obama said, "To those who want to destroy us, we will defeat you!" Then Liam and Finn broke out into delighted choruses of "We will defeat you! We will defeat you!" He also insisted that McCain didn't like Obama. There was really no arguing with him about their both being good men who have different opinions.

I asked him if they were talking about Obama and McCain in school and he said no. Then where did he hear them speak? He said he heard it on the radio, in the car. I guess we've been listening to NPR a lot. It must be a good way to create a 5-year-old political junkie. When I asked Liam if he wanted to be president someday, he told me it was really hard to get to be president. Too true.