Beatles and Swimming

This morning, the kids decided to live on the wild side and watch "Go, Diego, Go!" rather than their usual morning PBS shows.  And what a good choice that was, as there was a moment in the show which caused the girls to get ALL mad crazy excited.

DIEGO: Hey, what do you see down there in the water?
JULIA: (bursting with delight) A SUDMARIIIIIIIIINE!
MADELEINE: A SUBBARIIIIIIIINE!
JULIA: (incredulous with glee) A YELLOW sudmarine!!!
MADELEINE: A YELLOW subbarine!
JULIA: (disappointed) Oh.  no.  Orange.

Silence from both girls.

The orange sudmarine didn't completely ruin their Beatles fix for the day, however, as Ethan took them out to buy a copy of the "White" album, one of the few Beatles CDs we don't currently have.  (And by "don't currently have," I mean "once had, but then we lost one of the discs, and our house is too much of a cluttered disaster area for Ethan or I to expend any more energy looking for the missing disc, which is most likely scratched to heck by now.")

At any rate, Julia even found a way to incorporate the Beatles into her pretend play with her paper dolls, with which she plays underneath the dining room table.  I'm not sure why she insists on playing with them under there, but it appears that is where they live:

As Julia played with her various dolls, the subject turned to bands, and the paper person she named Cristy had the following to say:

CRISTY: They're a band, but they're not, like, ROCK STARS.  They're called the Beatles, and they're, like, really FAMOUS.

I guess the meaning of the label "rock stars" must mean something different to Julia than it did to Beatles fans back in the day.

Changing topic completely, the girls are absolutely LOVING the chance to swim at Rosemary Pool.  We made a family trip to the pool this afternoon, and I remembered to bring my video camera to catch some of Madeleine's fun underwater goggle time.  Her favorite thing to do, since getting her goggles, is to prowl around under the water like some sort of lurking crocodile:




The really exciting thing is that she is actually learning to float, hands-free, towards the end of her crocodile lurk, as you can see in this video:




The unexciting thing is that I still need to watch her like a hawk, despite her growing competence, because, being the fearless wild imp that she is, she is not beyond doing things like falling head-first off of the pool step into the water or forgetting to keep her mouth closed underwater, leading to severe cough/gag fits that leave me paranoid that she's about to puke a load into the pool. 

The best part about Madeleine's underwater feats is that she and Julia are now really able to play together at free swim.  They played a game of "Simon Says" today, and I was lucky enough to be included in the game.

Madeleine was the BEST Simon ever.

MADELEINE: Simon says: "go underwater and swim around for LONGER!"
JULIA AND I: (going underwater and swimming around)
MADELEINE: Okay.  Simon says..."go underwater and swim around for LONGER!"
JULIA AND I: (going underwater and swimming around)
MADELEINE: Now Simon says..."go underwater and swim around for LONGER!"
JULIA: Okay, how about Mommy is Simon now?

So I became Simon.

MADELEINE: Wait, uh, Mama, can you say "Simon says: go underwater and swim around for longer?"
ME: Okay.  Simon says: "go underwater and swim around for longer."
JULIA: (going underwater and swimming around for longer)
MADELEINE: (hopping up and down in nervous excitement, trying to gear up courage to go underwater and swim around for longer.)
ME: Okay.  Simon says: "Sit down on the ground of the pool."
MADELEINE: No, Mama!  WAIT!  I still have to go underwater and swim around LONGER!  (continuing to hop up and down in nervous excitement.)
JULIA: (sitting down on the ground of the pool) Okay, Mama, what NEXT?
ME: Hang on.  Madeleine still needs to go underwater and swim around for longer.
MADELEINE: (STILL hopping around in nervous excitement)
JULIA: Madeleine!  Will you HURRY UP?!?
MADELEINE: Uh, Julia, WAIT!  I still need to go around and swim around for LONGER!

Okay, so maybe I take back my above statement about Julia and Madeleine actually being able to play together in the water.

ANYWAY, swimming progress is being made by both girls, and most importantly, they are both truly loving the chance to get in the water and swim.  Maybe one of these days they'll see a YELLOW SUBBARINE under the water and that will make their water experience totally complete.