Proud Mama!

This past week has been huge for Javen. Sometime in the middle of last week he had the courage to try and swim in the deep end at my mom's pool. It's 8 feet deep. He had been sticking to hanging out in the 4 feet deep water. He'd jump in and come up and do that all day. I was able to convince him that jumping in the five feet deep water is pretty much the same because in the 4 feet deep he said he wasn't touching the bottom. He'd bend his knees so he wouldn't. So first he just started in the 5 feet deep and swam back to the 4 where he could touch. Then he built up and jumped into the 5 and swam back. Then he finally swam from the four to the eight staying by the wall the whole time so he could grab on if he got tired. He made it! Now he is jumping in to the 8 feet deep water and is not looking back! That is all without floaties by the way! He's a swimmer all the way!
Also, he learned to ride a two wheel bike! We started getting serious about it on Monday. We wanted to surprise Dave when he got back by having both boys learn to ride a two wheel bike without training wheels. We went to the church parking lot and went for it. Monday Javen was still scared and nervous. I took off one training wheel and helped him by holding him up still. On Tuesday we went to the school and did one training wheel again. He did so good! He turned around on the side with no training wheel without tipping over. I wasn't holding on but I was right there. He was still too scared to ride the bike home like that because it's down hill. So we stopped to go out to dinner with family and then show them what he could do at another park afterwards. I was getting the bikes out of the van, one with one training wheel on it and one with no training wheels. As I was getting the one with training wheels out he hopped on the one without and was going! He said, "Mom! Look at me! I'm doing it!" And he was! I was SHOCKED! Just hours before he was too scared. Ever since then all he wants to do is ride bikes! It's so great! We are working on Jaxon now. He is still building his confidence to ride fast enough to keep the bike up. I took one training wheel off for him today and he cried the whole time because he thought I was going too fast. (I was walking along side him holding him up) I finally convinced him to stop crying long enough to realize he was doing it. By the end of his turn I was only holding on to the handle bar with my fingertips. He was basically doing it. He does have a ways to go though. He still doesn't ride it fast enough. But we'll try again tomorrow and see how we do. Now that Javen is riding a bike I feel bad that I did it as a surprise for Dave because he missed the whole excitement of it. He has also never seen him swim in the deep end. He's been at work every time and now he's at scout camp. Hopefully he'll see him do it soon.
I don't have pictures of Jaxon on the bike yet because I'm still having to hold him up. I can't take pictures and do that at the same time.



This is Javen jumping in the deep end into
floatie ring.

This is Javen jumping in the deep end.

Jumping in the deep end again.

Riding his bike at Zuanich Park!

Look at him go!

Isn't it a beautiful day? How lucky we

are to live here!