Swimming in the Rain

Yesterday, during free swim at our town pool, we all watched as one of the lifeguards attempted to jump into the deep end out of his lifeguard chair, in a standing position.  This was not done in order to save a floundering child or anything serious like that, but was merely for the lifeguard's (and the gathering audience's) entertainment. 

After the guard successfully made his jump smoothly into the water, his audience grew.  Madeleine and Julia were transfixed by the lane line, watching to see what he would do next.  He then climbed back into the chair and stood backwards, considering a backwards dive into the pool. 

Julia looked extremely nervous.  I felt extremely nervous.  Several of the male lifeguards egged this guard on, while one of the female guards adamantly discouraged him from such tom-foolery. 

During the mix of shouts from the lifeguards, over which the female guard's "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" could be heard bellowing through the air, I suddenly heard Madeleine's little pipsqueak voice pipe up.

MALE GUARDS: C'mon!  You've got an audience now.
FEMALE GUARD: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!  NOOOOOOOOOO!
MADELEINE: (hollering delightedly) DO IT!

Yes, my little 4-year-old was adding to the peer pressure.  Thankfully, the guard came to his senses and nixed the idea of a backward dive, though his forward-facing jump was enough to fascinate Madeleine even further.

Lucky for Madeleine, she got her own chance to indulge in her daredevil tendencies at today's swim lesson.  Because it was raining, and because the pool has JUST re-opened after a 30 minute thunder closure, Julia and Madeleine wound up being the only two kids to show up at their lesson time today.  Instead of a traditional lesson, the swim teachers made it into a Fun Day, and since there were four guards in the deep end with only two kids, the girls were able to do all sorts of wild and crazy things they're normally not able to do.  Madeleine took great delight in standing up on the giant surfboard, (normally used for kids to sit and ride on) and plunging off the side and under the water.  She also got to take multiple trips to the diving board and jump off by herself.

Jumping off the diving board, in Madeleine's words: "That's, like, the FUNNEST PART EVER."

And she also said this: "I just loooove...uh, I have a CRUSH on the diving board."

She clearly really understands what it means to have a crush.

Julia also got to dive off of the diving board, the dock, and even off of the surfboard, to her heart's content.  There was virtually no line, since it was just Julia and Madeleine taking up the while pool.

Both girls had a blast, despite the rain.  And because Julia was so excited to have gotten what was basically a play-date with her teacher in the deep end, she made sure to make one of her goofy-over-stimulated-completely-inappropriate remarks to her teacher.

JULIA: (making a random announcement) I have a white tank top that has a SPORTS BRA in it and I don't understand WHY I need a SPORTS BRA.

I can always count on Julia to be completely tactful and not awkward AT ALL.

At any rate, it was a great morning for the kids, and I'm especially grateful that we were able to get out to the pool on a day that might have been spent completely cooped up indoors!