Zelda Learns to Dive

During the summer months we get to enjoy our pool, pretty much every day. Some days it’s quite refreshing, others, it’s more like a wet kind of warm and while it’s hard to fathom, on some days, it can actually seem a bit chilly after the sun leaves the back yard and the wind picks up a bit. Regardless of the day, the boys absolutely love to go swimming and we love how much it tires them out.

At the beginning of the summer, Mateo announced there’s a missile on the roof, outside of his room. Uh-huh. Well, as is pretty much always the case, he was right. There was a toy missile, that somehow was launched up and away onto our roof and it looked pretty fun. We returned the missile to our neighbors pool and promised to buy one for Mateo. Of course, when we get to the store, they don’t have the regular missiles, only the mega missiles, baby baseball bat sized ones. And as any seasoned negotiator will tell you, timing plays a key role and Mateo has it in spades. As we place the mega missile in the cart, he points to droopy-faced Lucas, who is saddened by the prospect of sharing a missile, so we add another to the cart. And then, Mateo reminds us that Pete will be coming over tomorrow to swim and will be quite sad if there’s no missile for him to play with, so, we add another.

Well, as it turns out, the allure of the mega missile is quite strong. While our darling Zelda used to love jumping in after a tennis ball, one look at the mega missile and it’s smooth, gliding path through the pool triggered her prey instinct better than mechanical rabbits for a greyhound and ever since, she would have nothing else. She’d snatch the missile out of the boy’s hands when they came close to the edge and soon she began jumping after it as well. Of course, she could never come close, as it travels under water, until one day, out of the splash, there she is, totally soaked with the missile in her mouth.

Just one last hurdle to clear. Joey too, likes the missile, but in a different way. Zelda loves the chase, she wants to catch it, give it back, rinse and repeat. Joey on the other hand is a bit of a stinker, he likes to tease, he takes the toy, wants you to chase him and when caught, engage in puppy combat (tug of war). Joey would take the missile from Zelda as she got out of the pool and do his thing. This was fixed easily enough, Zelda now drops the rocket on the step as she gets out of the water and guess who won’t stick his face in there to get it?

It’s amazing at how adept she’s become at this and how much fun she has, she really can’t get enough. Which of course, is right in line with Mateo and Lucas, they can’t get enough of this either. While Andrea was in Brasil, we’d sometimes have to add a night swim session, which of course doubled as a bath (there’s lots of chlorine in the pool, right?).

And without further adieu, the amazing Zelda