Swimming Party with Molly and Friends

To celebrate Bethany's seventh birthday with school friends, we had a joint birthday party with her friend Molly who was born the exact sameday as Beth at the YMCA. Bethany and Molly are in different classes this year, so each girl got to invite ten friends from their respective classes. The theme of course was Aeril. Bethany's classmates who attended were Hayley, Darrin, Corrine, Audrey, Johnna, and Molly.  

The kids couldn't wait to swim.  The only thought they had while eating cupcakes with chocolate seashells on blue icing filled with creme was, "When can we swim." One little boy said, " Enough of this girl stuff let's get wet." when we were opening gifts.                                                       

Bethany is Seven!

When I was pregant with Bethany, I took water aerobics at the South Charleston Recreation Center the entire time. I was swimming three days before Bethany joined us in this world. I joked then that Bethany would become a mermaid when she grew up.


It turns out that my joke was very prophetic. Bethany loves, loves, loves swimming. She has been taking swimming lessons since August at our YMCA. She can do sommersaults in the water and a handstand. She swims like a seal.



She also has a fascination with mermaids. She takes her mermaid Barbie with her to swimming lessons. She takes the Barbie diving with her in the pool during free swim at the end of class. Its pretty cute to watch.



This year she had an Ariel theme birthday party. Gigi and Poppa braved a terrible snow storm to celebrate with us this year. Gigi and Poppa gave Bethany an Ariel bedspread set for her room. She was incredibly excited to sleep with a mermaid princess.




I am interested in seeing if Bethany's love of swimming continues throughout her life. Do I have a future swim team member as a daughter? Will she move to the ocean and join her mermaid sisters? At the very least I hope she will take water aerobics with me someday.

Bottom Right Tooth: First One In and First One Out!

On February 8, 2010, Bethany Noelle Johnson lost her very first tooth. When asked about the incident, Bethany stated that "It was fine. At first I was really scared, but it was okay." Bethany's Mom was talking to her Dad on the telephone in the parking lot of Gambino Chiropractic when the tooth broke free. Dad wasn't going to take Bethany to swimming because Bethany's tooth was bleeding after biting into a chicken wing at dinner. While the parents were talking on the phone, the tooth just popped out as easy as could be. Mom instructed Dad to give Bethany a wet tea bag to bite onto for a few minutes to stop the bleeding.

Mom rushed home to see the her baby girl. By the time she arrived father and daughter were happily watching the Disney channel, while the tooth resided in a fruit dish waiting to be washed. Bethany wants the tooth to be extra clean for the Tooth Fairy. She hopes the Tooth Fairy brings her money, real money. Apparently, PawPaw told her the Tooth Fairy brings fake money to children.

 This tooth was Bethany's first tooth, it made its appearance the last week of August in 2003. A week and half later the next door neighbor tooth appeared. Watch for updates for the departure of the second tooth and the results of the Tooth Fairy's first visit to 161 Maple Lake.

The Puppies get their first Cocker Spaniel Haircut!

Over the Christmas break, Tippy and Daisy had their female surgeries so that we would not have puppies in our future. Bethany did not really like this idea. She thinks having puppies would be a great event.  Somehow, the surgery was taking away something precious from Tippy and Daisy. I told her we had to have the surgeries because we signed a contract with the breeder that we would. Thankfully, this settled the debate. A contract is a very important agreement, which can not be broken. Maybe we did take something precious away from Tippy and Daisy, but consequences of not taking away this ability are also tremendous for the humans involved.

The surgeries were quite the ordeal for the pups. We had to keep them separated from each other for two entire weeks. The pups felt fantastic after a couple of days and were offended that they could not play with each other. We rotated them in and out of their crate every few hours for fourteen days. They developed games to play through the bars of the cage. They curled up next to each other with bars between them to sleep. It was very pitiful.

At last the recommended time of separation was over, they were reunited about ten o'clock on a Saturday night. We had new snow on the ground. Tippy and Daisy were frantic with puppy mania. The puppies played gleefully with puppy smiles on their faces well into the night. They raced in and out of their dog door out into the snow and back again. They tumbled and romped. They barked and chatted. They howled at the world a message of pure joy. They had each other again.

To celebrate their recovery, we took them for a bath and a trim. They got their first official cocker spaniel haircuts. Our puppies aren't little babies anymore. I'd say we have reached the teenage years already.

Winter Hibernation

The winter has been cold and snowy, or soggy and deary. We are in the aftermath of a snow storm as I write this. We were lucky in that we only got about eight inches this time. Washington DC had thirty inches. The weather channel is calling the storm a "Winter Powerhouse". It apparently has broken some snowfall records in the midatlantic region.

Bethany and I have been spending a lot of time in front of our fireplace or undercovers reading. This weekend we prepared her Valentines for school. She and her Dad worked on her Valentine box. We also set up a crystal growing garden. I made some vegetarian chili. Today I think we will make some muffins.

We went out in the snow yesterday with the puppies. I shoveled the driveway. We are watching a lot of cartoons and episodes of Hannah Montana on television.

During the week we are keeping incredibly busy. Monday night is swimming lessons. Tuesday night is art class and water aerobics for me. Wednesday night is swimming lessons. Thursday night is water aerobics. I am glad we are busy during the week. It keeps me from completely hibernating during this frozen time. I truly just want to be under the covers all of the time.

Bethany reported to me this week that  Phil the groundhog saw his shadow, and that we would be having six more weeks of bad winter. I hope that groundhog gets back to sleep after being rudely awakened, if we are indeed going to have more bad winter. Being unconscious and cold is much better than being cold and awake.