Math has been replaced by swimming, as the activity that rattles me to the core.

We are two days in to summer vacation.

I have ONE official commitment this summer, which began today.

And so far, it is kicking my a-s-s.

It will get better. But, our one commitment is G's swim team, which practices four mornings a week at 9:00 a.m. Followed by Big J, L and Little J's swim lessons at 10:20 a.m. Plus, some evening swim clinics (like tonight). Plus two swim meets a week.

That means four children, in swimwear, all lubed up and ready to party by 9 a.m. Yowza.

Eventually, I will drop G off at swim practice and come back home to suit the little's up. But as this is her first week at it, I want to hang around for moral support, which really just ends up being 23 goggle adjustments. I am beginning to *hate* goggles because they are effective .00067% of the time.

Just to recap the current list of things I hate: math, diving torpedoes, the word "panties", milk, people who kick puppies, pollen, Farmville on Facebook, my winter fat layer(s), bananas, The devil, bullies, foam stickers...and possibly, goggles.

Swim team went okay, G hung in there pretty good, despite being challenged to physically exert herself (which would, probably, make her list of things she hates). No diving off the blocks, but I have decided that it is going to be Mike's responsibility to encourage her, as I took one for the team this year by *teaching* her math, and I refuse to learn/model the art of diving.

To add insult to injury, my mom left this morning, and she was pretty much running interference between me and the kids for the past 12 days. Which means I am now dealing with an average of 3.4 requests every second, and my brain HURTS.

And then it got all kinds of grey and ominous, and outdoor play was out of the question for a while today, so I loaded up and took the kids to the mall, because it is the first week of June, we are hitting 90 degrees and I am learning that my boycott of shorts is UNREALISTIC. Oh! I tried to buy one of those jumpsuit thingies, you know with the shorts attached to the tank top with some sort of elastic waist band?

BAD. IDEA.

Then we went to pick up G's swim fins and her team suit (swimming is wicked expensive, it seems). The lady at the swimsuit shop tried to convince me to order G a suit that would fit an 18-month old. I might have been insecure enough to believe her, but G has -7% body fat and her skin was bulging out of this thing, AND she was walking all hunched because the suit was exerting great pressure upon her spinal cord.

Then we stopped for ice cream and came home and baked a cookie cake. Before heading out to swim practice #2.

I promised you pictures on our first official craft of the summer! It was a success...kind of. But I will let you be the judge when you see it tomorrow. After I get four kids to the pool. And the grocery store, because I am out of soup, and that is all I am eating for the next 6 weeks.

Famous. Last. Words.