Last Hurrah at the pool

We woke up on Daddyday (Saturday) to beautiful blue skies and nice warm weather.  After being treated  to a pancake, sausage, scrambled egg and coffee breakfast ~ my hubby ROCKS! ~ we offered our crew several options for how we'd spend our day as a family.  With the new skills our darlings were itching to share with their daddy, I was not surprised at all when they ~ pretty much in unison ~ started chanting,"Pool day, pool day, pool day!"

We arrived and were in the water slightly before 11.

First thing to share with Daddy was, "Look how well I'm swimming!"

Kylie surprised even me by using both hands to pull herself through the water instead of using one to hold her nose.

 Caleb put to use the advice to "part the Red Sea" that cousins Pierson and Maylin shared with him after their swim lessons.

Darcy started the day with a death grip on Daddy's arm, (she can't touch in the shallow end of our public pool and is not comfortable with that) but showed her kicking skills.

We spent the first hour standing about ten feet from the edge of the pool with our kids alternating jumping to us and swimming back to the edge.  Then they remembered we had brought our dive fishies and wanted to show Daddy how they could retrieve them from the bottom of the pool.

At the beginning Kylie had to drop to her knees and then bend over to retrieve the fish.  After several attempts, she figured out how to kick her way down to fetch them.

And then she was much too busy fishing to pose for a picture.

Some  people seem to float naturally.  Caleb is one of those folks.  For this little guy it took an amazing amount of leg strength (kicking) to get himself to the bottom.  But he did it.

Even if the amount of time it took him to get to the bottom made his daddy nervous.  Which brought about several "retrievals" where Daddy decided his boy had been under too long.  I should have gotten a picture of Caleb's face when those happened...

And then there was Darcy.  My little one who would obviously rather drown than be shown up by the diving skills of her siblings.  When she asked Ian to help her get the fish, he at first refused.  And she cried.  Eventually he softened and had her show him how long she could hold her breath.  Because of her amazing ability to hold her head underwater for long periods, he relented and helped push her down to get them.  Some thirty minutes later she had finally figured out how to get to the bottom herself.

And she was really proud!

We happily watched our kiddos swim, dive for fishies, and jump to their hearts' content. Every now and then Ian and I exchanged the "we should probably head" look, but truthfully, neither of us wanted the magic of the day to end.  Granted, none of our three are swimming gracefully yet, and none of them know how to pop their heads up, take a breath, put their head back down and keep swimming, BUT it was so exciting to watch their joy as they built confidence and made little breakthroughs!

Eventually we made our way down to the deeper water (leaving our fish toys) to avoid the crowd of kids that was trying to drown play with our kids.  (Still annoyed at the grandfather who was "watching" his three grandkids ~ the cuties who were taking toys from my kids ~ while chatting with some younger women).   All three continued to amaze us with the courage they showed.  At the beginning of the summer we had to try to coax all of them to jump to us from three feet away.  Not now!

Poised for action.  And those who know where Kylie has "come from" when it comes to water should be stunned that Ian is standing between the lane markers.  MUCH further than she would ever venture to jump before!

This picture just captures Caleb for me.  Not quite in focus.  The constant motion simply IS who he is.  And the swim trunks?  The first purchase I ever made for him ~two summers ago while I was waiting for our PA (back then it was averaging several weeks).  I bought them the day I let my heart believe that we were really going to have a son.  They are his very favorite ones now, he even prefers them to his Lightning McQueen suit.

And yes, Darcy jumped too.  Many times.  Over and over.  But this picture just shows why we call her Determined Darcy.  She was not going to be behind her siblings when it came to swimming.  So she swallowed her fears, lowered her head, and swam...

Four and one half hours later, we finally pulled three reluctant kids out of the water.  By the time we got home and ate lunch, it was after four.  Far too late for naps.  We knew then that we'd likely pay for that the next day.  But when it comes to saying goodbye to summer, does one missed nap really matter?