Every day Stephanie, quite faithfully, gets up and hauls her littlest brother to the YMCA for swimming lessons.  The first few days she will tell you were awful as he fought going in the water, but he eventually did. (Far better than her however, as she would not let go of my leg OR get in the water!) But there are fruits of her labor!  Ben can now swim, although he is no Michael Phelps, and he even goes off the diving board!

Yes, Steph is his “Nanny” for the summer.  This is not to be confused with his “Nanny” which is what he calls Amanda’s mom either.  Steph is truly “her brother’s keeper,” and they are pretty funny to watch as she has him moving through each and every day.

Steph also conducts some academic activities for Ben as well.  She has been given a bit of direction however prior to conducting these sessions though.  It is not that we do not trust her, but Steph used to not want to play or be a kid when she was young…..she would rather stay inside and do math stuff.  She is nowhere near that weird today, but we do keep a sharp eye out on her as she does give Ben some math (and in addition to a biochemistry major in college, she adds math and Spanish minors….she could just go all “mathy” at any point).

But speaking of points, mine is that they are doing a great job together.  This summer will probably mean a lot to them both down the line, but it give great meaning to me now!  I am proud of them both and enjoy watching them each and every day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+