Tuesdays are crazy around here. Both boys have swimming at separate times, plus one has soccer practice and usually about 2 hours of homework (yes, in first grade. Poor guy!). By the end of the day we are all pretty much just running on fumes.

Oleg is currently in preschool in the afternoons (or Pre-K as he will strongly remind you), and still at nearly 5 years old is good for a 2 or 3 hour nap on most afternoons when we can fit it in. Because of these reasons, he takes his swim lesson in the morning. This is usually right in the middle of the time when I work out, so I have to work around it.

On the subject of Oleg’s swimming, I have to laugh, because for a year he has been enrolled in Pike level at our local Y. I think he’s on his 4th or 5th time through the class. This is because although he loves to swim it’s been a struggle for him to get his body and his brain all wrapped around the actual act of swimming. He just could not physically do it. Also, when we had him in afternoon lessons, he would be so freaked out by the noise level in the pool that he would basically be mentally out to lunch the entire time. So, we kept enrolling in Pike and he would pick up one or two skills each time but was just not ready to pass on to the next level.

We think learning to swim is important as a safety precaution, so we figured we’d just keep trying until he got it. Well, finally, one year later, he is getting it. It helps that at the end of August we went to DisneyWorld, where he got to spend an hour or two in the pool every day. But also, he is physically more coordinated and mentally starting to make connections he couldn’t before. And finally, the morning lessons are quiet enough that he is more able to focus and stay calm. So finally after a year of doing “Chicken-airplane-rocket” at the Pike level, he gets to move up to Eel. It’s a big accomplishment for the little guy.

Usually, during swim lessons is when I try to do my running. I get to kill two birds with one stone – I am not there at the lesson to draw Oleg’s attention away from his teacher, and I get the run done at the same time. But yesterday I decided to watch the lesson instead. This meant that when the lesson was done I had to rush to get the running done and didn’t have much time for strength work. So I decided to make it as good of a run as I could, and do a longer strength workout today.

It turned out to be a good run. This includes warm up and cool down and so the pace was pretty good.

After the run, I did leg and core strengthening. That meant that today, I needed to mainly focus on arms, shoulders, and hips. Plus core which is kind of a daily thing. So that’s what I did – and not much more, because Oleg really needed a nap today, due to waking up at 2, 4 and 6 am, and being crabby as a result. He is normally a good sleeper, but being enrolled in school, swimming and soccer is probably about one thing more than he can really handle, so he has been getting very tired. And when he gets tired, he doesn’t sleep as well. Which is kind of counterintuitive, but that seems to be the deal with kids sometimes.