Samut Saring Ceylon - Swimming and mushroom weekend

Sat 4 Oct 2008 - Swimming and mushroom weekend

I wonder how these two topics came together.

It must be that I am running out of things to write. Hmmm, anyway, it's a Saturday, a weekend, and that is expected, since I have already drained out most of my creative juices the whole week. For all I know, I might be mounting up and gaining momentum for next week's learning adventure. Ha! You couldn't tell. Anyway, I have only two things to mention.

One is swimming.

After 9 gruelling months in Level 1 due to off and on allergies and skipping most of her weekly classes, Vibrant Bea was promoted to Level 2 and managed to finish it in 2 months. Today, she is promoted to Level 3! Wheee! She is doing breast stroke quite well now but has to work more on her butterfly and dive. She is getting there for sure. Recently, she told me that she is enjoying swimming more than ever. It keeps getting better. Isn't that great news or what?

Fuzzy remains on Level 2 which he started on last September. But with the rate he is going he might get promoted to Level 3 by November. He is learning very well and has met new kids in his class. Swimming keeps him trim. We will see.

They didn't take part in the recently concluded meet. It was on a Sunday. Most athletics meets are held on Sundays in this country. For that reason they have never joined many. I noticed they have added interesting activities after their regular laps. Now, they have games and mock relays. Everybody gets to cheer the swimmers including us, parents. It is undeniably fun and exciting on swimming days.

As for Lil Ruffin, she just got to Toddler 2 today after 2 months in Toddler 1 class. We had a blast watching her this afternoon. Her instructor brought her class to the edge of the deep pool (3 meters) to jump. Each child was told to jump and an instructor in the water dived down to get the child. Mind you, these are 3-5 year olds. Our kid is 3 and a half and looks the smallest of them. Each were given two jumps. Lil Ruffin did well on the two jumps. When it was her classmate's turn to jump, unexpectedly she too jumped quite suddenly with so much glee. The instructor was caught by surprise and dived down to get her and the other kid underwater. They all surfaced safely; the instructor couldn't help smiling and Lil Ruffin was giggling! A funny thing about her is she accompanies her jumps with a loud shriek of excitement, like one on a roller coaster dip, and without hesitation would plunge legs first in the deep pool. She just loves it and not one bit afraid.

Lil Ruffin enjoys her swimming lessons so much she would eagerly take a nap when I tell her it is important to rest before going to swim. Other days, you need to be pretty smart to convince her.

Mushrooms. Well, that is the second one.

How did I get to buy a bag of mushroom culture today? As any Saturday, we always get our supplies from the supermarket on this day. It was too late to realize that it is World Animal Day. The freezers in the meat and poultry sections were empty except for the cold cuts which we never fancy anyway. No animal shed blood under the butcher's knife. That is neat!

Actually I can go on days without the meat but the children love chicken. So we just picked our usual veggies and greens; and guess what I found on the veggie shelf? Bags of mushroom culture. For only RS140 Sri Lanka rupees, if we do it right, we can have a month's supply of mushroom for every 10 day intervals. It sounds promising. We haven't tried this before so we decided to get one and learn from it.

The bag looks like this.