Though the weather continues to be beautiful, with cool mornings and sunny hot afternoons, the days are getting shorter. But the surest sign of fall is our packed evening schedule of sports activities. Beckett has started up with the neverending season of hockey on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Theo and Beckett play soccer on the team Jeff coaches, which has practices one night a week (and it changes every week!) and a game on Saturday morning. Reed made his first request for his own activity and chose swim lessons, which I signed everyone up for on Tuesday evenings at one of the city pools (for $10 each for 8 sessions). And while Jeff recovers from shoulder surgery last week, Theo is taking Jeff's spot in piano lessons Monday evenings (which Jeff only got because Beckett stopped playing when summer started). It's a good thing I'm not trying to win a political campaign, because I'm not making many evening community meetings these days.
Hockey has been more fun than I could have imagined. Beckett loves being on the ice and every other aspect--getting suited up, washing his gear afterward, and missing out on time with neighbors and screen time to go to practice. He has improved so much since the first time he played last January. The week at Cornell Hockey camp made a big difference, for sure. I'm still not sure whether he'll enjoy this season but decide it's too long of a season (seven full months) and want to take a break from hockey next year, or whether he'll ask to do Cornell Hockey camp again this summer and maybe want to find other opportunities to be on the ice during the summer. He enjoys it so much it's hard to see stopping him, though if we don't make practice some nights (especially if we start having four ice times a week) I won't mind. The parents we know from our neighborhood are great too, so we can share carpooling duties to the rink and have fun on the bench during practice.
Theo is normally not the one to try a new thing but when Jeff asked him if he'd like to take Jeff's piano lesson slot, he jumped at it. By Jeff's account (I was at hockey) Theo took to the lesson really well, and was already practicing on his own when we got home from hockey. The first thing he did when he woke up the next morning was start practicing (and completing his practice log). It's fun to see him enjoying something and having fun improvising with something he is doing all on his own.
Tuesday night was the first night of swim lessons. Theo has been upset about having to do swim lessons at every opportunity to talk about it. Tonight he didn't seem to mind the lessons but didn't like having to go to the locker room (even with his brothers, and no one else, in there). Reed, whose idea it was to enroll in swim lessons, was hesitant at first but ultimately seemed to have a great time. The pool is warm and the instructors seem great--very fun and engaging and silly--so I think it will be a good experience. And we have to drive right past Gannon's Ice Cream so of course an ice cream trip to celebrate the first swim lessons was in order.
Tonight everyone was tired at bedtime. Jeff was out of the house alone for the first time since his shoulder surgery last week so I cuddled into our bed to read stories to the kids. Theo was snuggled under the covers, so Reed snuggled in next to him. Reed had his head resting on Theo's head during stories, while Beckett was snuggled in on the other side of me. After Theo and Beckett were tucked in, Reed seemed to have some wiggly energy so I laid down next to him in his bed. I enjoyed the smell of his hands, still sticky with chocolate marshmallow ice cream, and the warmth of his little body next to me. I watched his eyelids flutter closed as he cuddled up to his stuffed sapsucker (thanks Sapsucker Woods!) under his quilt that I handmade for him. Our faces were so close that I could feel his warm breath on my face. I know that in what will seem like a very short time he will be out of my house and I will yearn for these days when I can hear my kids breathing in their sleep across the hall from me, or hear their little feet stumble to the bathroom at night, or I can come out to start my shower in the morning and see Reed's head on the floor in a headstand while his feet lay across his bed, still fully asleep. This time is so busy and crazy and loud and full of emotion and also completely perfect.
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