Julie Gumm - Author

Swim Progress

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Friday we spent the day swimming at our friend’s house. Dad told the 3 youngest kids “No floaties!”

I was curious to see how all of them would do. Natalie is right on the brink of being fully independent in the water. As long as she doesn’t try to cross at a really wide part of the pool, she does great at swimming underwater, gliding. Gotta work on her freestyle some more and being able to get a breath and continue.

Wendemagegn and Beza stayed in the part where they can stand up for the most part but they had a lot of fun swimming back and forth. It’s really fine tuning – like getting them to kick with mostly-straight legs, and “scoop” the water instead of slap it with their hands. They got more adventurous as the day went on and even went down to the deeper part, would jump in and then swim back to the side (w/ mom standing by for backup that was unneeded).

Here’s a couple really short clips we took to show dad when we got home:

Answering the prayer of a little girl’s heart

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I was just commenting to someone last week that it seemed as if we had not had as many grieving tears lately – especially from Beza (she’s the one that shows the most emotion about leaving Ethiopia and Grammy behind).

Well I’m not sure exactly what set it off (although I’m sure it was exacerbated by lack of sleep) but last night the tears were flowing. She even told me she wanted to go back to Ethiopia and not come back. (I knew she didn’t really mean it, so I didn’t take it personally.) We have told her before that we would love to take her and Wendemagegn back to Ethiopia some time but it is very expensive and so we’re not sure when we will be able to do that. Her concern is that Grammy will die before she gets to see her again.

So I was comforting her the best I could. I asked if she maybe wanted to write a letter or draw a picture for Grammy tomorrow and she said “No, it’s not the same. I want to SEE Grammy.” So we prayed that God would keep Grammy healthy until Beza and Wendemagegn could see her again, that we would be able to have the money to make a trip to Ethiopia sometime “soon” and that he would help Beza not to be sad.

I finally left the girls room only to hear her calling me a few minutes later to come back up. When I got up there she was trying to figure out how to stick a picture of Grammy on the wall next to the nightlight by her bed so she could see it. So we taped it up there. Then Natalie asked if she could sleep with Beza so she wouldn’t be sad (isn’t she sweet). So we compromised by throwing all the blankets and pillows on the floor and they slept together.

This morning as I was scarfing down breakfast I grabbed by Blackberry to scan my emails. There in my inbox was an email from the family friend in Ethiopia. Attached were 4 WONDERFUL professional pictures of Grammy and the kids half sister Mesret. I totally got chills at how God answers Beza’s prayer. I know it wasn’t exactly what Beza meant when she said “SEE” Grammy but what a wonderful reminder that God cares about what is in her heart. He sent us a visible reminder that Grammy is well.

She is a beautiful woman and to me embodies so many things including courage and selfless love.

Grammy

Swimming

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A pretty constant question since the kids arrival has been “When we go swimming?” I’ve quizzed them a bit on their swimming experience which has pretty much been nil. I think Wen has been in some sort of water hole before (I can only imagine the water) but I’m pretty sure he could stand up.

I signed them up for swim lessons a couple weeks ago but they don’t start until the middle of June. I put Wen & Beza in level 1 and was told that I can move them up if I found out they know more than I think they know.

Last week we finally had the opportunity to go swimming at a friend’s house (how I long for a pool in our backyard 🙂 Noah is a decent swimmer on his own. Natty still requires floaties to be independent although she does a pretty good job at gliding short distances. I’m hoping by the end of the summer she’ll be able to be on her own.

I also bought floaties for Beza and Wen. We got in the pool (along w/ my friends 4 kids). I told Wen & Beza to stay on the steps while I was getting Natalie’s floaties on. I wasn’t sure how well the floaties would hold them up since they weigh about 10 lbs more than she does. Well before I know it Wen has stepped off and is behind me (within arms length) sputtering and flailing his arms. I quickly grabbed him and pulled him toward me. I truly think that if he had stopped flailing and relaxed he was probably in an area where he could have stood up. But he was getting mouthfuls of water from his efforts to stay afloat.

So, needless to say, he completely freaked himself out about the water. He spent the rest of the day inside the pink float ring. I took him out a couple of times to show him how to float on his back but he was so tense that he couldn’t get his body to really relax despite the fact that I was still holding on to him.

Beza did much better. After about 40 minutes she was jumping off the side, going under the water, popping back up and slowly propelling herself toward the side of the pool. She had a blast. They haven’t really gotten the kicking/arm movements down so they move pretty slow in the pool.

Now Wen keeps telling everyone “I need preschool swim lessons!”

swimming