Look Mom I can swim!...

Earlier I took the tribe for their ritual morning swim. Boy do they LOVE the pool! They will gaze out of our sliding glass door & say that's MY pool. TOO cute! We have only had the pool about 3 years so our pool toys are not immense. One BIG expense was this HUGE umbrella that we keep near the shallow end of the pool to give us a break from the Florida heat. It was super expensive with the special umbrella holder but well worth it! Gives us just the right amount of shade & being that we live in Florida we need shade! (= I usually leave it open when we are home but Daddy closes it up after each swim. Needless to say it was closed today. There I was opening the sucker up when I found not one, not two, but THREE sticky frogs inside the umbrella. You know the kind that stick to you if you touched them! YUK YUK YUK! I can handle almost any type of amphibian but the one I REALLY REALLY loathe is the sticky frog! The fact that they are sticky does not help! DISGUSTING!Where we live there are PLENTY of them so it's a constant battle. Anyhow I put on a brave face while I shooed the frogs away & raised the umbrella. No sooner do I have the umbrella up when I realize there is a frog on top of my head! YES on top of my head! I was no longer brave, I proceeded to do the freaked out dance. YUK! I wanted it off my head & did not want to touch it to get it to move! After what seemed like an eternity it finally leaped off into the grass. I turned to Camryn & said "Did you see that frog on my head?!". She said "Yes". I then said "Next time you see that there is a frog on mommy's head please tell her!". LOL! You think the frog freaked them out? NO... They spent the next 10 minutes looking for more frogs! I bet not even seeing a snake would scare them! They love the outdoors & all the creatures that inhabit it! They are definitely their father's children! LOL! Once they finally gave up on that mission they set their sights on the pool & their new found talent... swimming!It was CRAZY! They were leaping off the ledge into the pool like they have been doing it forever! {It has only been 2 days! LOL!} They were kicking their feet & even floating on their backs! I was VERY proud of my three little swimmers! Brendan on the other hand still does not want that freedom. He was much happier if I held him or just standing on the steps. We still did our Mommy "swim" lessons so he can keep up the practice. I think he likes it when he is held because floating sort of freaks him out. I am OK with that. One day he will be a WILD man & we won't be able to control him! (= I did not want them to be out in the sun too long so I made them get out. They did NOT want to leave. After about 4 times of me telling them they had to get out they finally listened. Then it was all about the towels. You see they each have their "favorite" or the one they think they should be using & will cause a scene if someone else uses it! I tell you I have created little monsters! hehee! It's just that they have a routine & do not want to veer far from it. I just tell myself that they like "structure". LOL! Well, Today I only brought out two BIG towels for the five of us. Needless to say that did not go over well. They kept telling me that they needed their towel. How exactly do you explain to a two year old that you are going to share? hmm...I ended up distracting them by letting them play on our back porch. It is covered, has a slide/climber & many other toys on it. It may be hot but at least we'd be under cover! It was a win win situation. At least that is what I thought. Before I knew it they got into some mischief with a potted plant & had dirt EVERYWHERE! I now had to clean them up & sweep the porch! The work never ends! LOL! I decided a hose would be the quickest way. After hosing them down I thought why not let them go back in the pool for a quick dip. No sooner did I open up the pool fence & tell them they could go "swimming" did Lindsey taking a running leap into the shallow end of our pool. This jump was MINUS her "swimmies" and she CANNOT swim! There I was jumping in after her. However just as I got to Linz Aave also jumped in. CRAZY children! I pulled the both of them right up & luckily neither one of them sucked in any water. Can they possibly be holding their mouth when they go under water now? It's scary moments like this that keep me on my toes. Their "swimmies" are now going to be on before the pool fence is even opened! It was just like what Grandma said would happen, she was telling me...

Look Mom I can swim!...

the monkey crawl...

Having a swimming pool & a pond in your backyard creates quite the dilemma when you have 4 toddlers who cannot swim. Swimming lessons X4, YIKES! I have checked into it & though important it's also VERY expensive! So where do you find the money?Looks like at least for now it will be Michael & I giving them half assed lessons. I keep telling myself that it is better than nothing! We really are SO lucky to have built our pool BEFORE quads because we never would have built one after them. Heck we would never have been able to afford one now! CRAZY but true! SO we're lucky, broke people with FOUR munchkins that need to learn how to swim! I take them all out in the pool pretty much every day. In the beginning it was rough. They did NOT like it if the water was TOO cold or better yet they did not like going under the water. My how things change with just a few short months. They LOVE it! They will sometimes stand pointing out the sliding glass door "MY pool". I kid them & say NOOO it's MY pool & they would joke back saying it was theirs. We went all out & got ALL the bell's & whistles. At that time we had the money & I never thought I'd become a mommy so this was to be my "sanctuary".


Well it turned out better than we could have expected & now 3 1/2 years later it has served us well! We have a sun shelf where if I ever sunbathed I'd lay out & get my vitamin D. But now it is their playground. The perfect place for a toddler to play! They actually behave & stay there while I bring one of the tribe out into the pool for some "mommy swim lessons".




The twins, Avery & Lindsey, aka "The twins", are WILD! They will jump in towards you, go under the water & come up grinning! Nothing phases them! Brendan is becoming a little fish. He is cautious but LOVES it when I take him under water or get him kicking those legs of his. PLUS he does not want to leave the pool when it's time to go in. Then there's Camryn, the MOST cautious one of all. She can perform leaps & bounds above the rest of them BUT does it the safest way possible. She watches & learns from EVERYONE.She pays attention & sees everything!







My six year old niece can swim like a fish & there was Camryn watching her EVERY move. In two short days she taught Camryn what we've been trying to teach her, them, since March. How to grab onto the side of the pool if they ever fell in & get back to the steps. My cousin Lori started showing them that & we have repeated it hoping they would "get" it. Thanks to Lauren our Camryn can now go all the way around the pool doing...







the monkey crawl...

it's a gecko, not a geico gecko....

Just the other day when we ALL were swimming in the pool at Grandma's we spotted a gecko. It seemed to be habitating under Grandma's umbrella stand. We spyed it for awhile until it darted out from under its cover & into plain view. The babies LOVED looking at their new "friend". We no sooner took one eye off of it & it jumped from the patio into mid air & then into the pool. I never knew geckos could swim! Well this little bugger did & EVERYONE in the pool freaked with the exception of Dustyn & his four little siblings. They LOVED the fact that their new friend was now swimming among them. (They are their father's children!) Dustyn took charge & went after it like a hunter catching his prey. He LOVE'S catching anything with legs! In fact he has a bearded dragon as a pet! He has had way too many "cool" pets to mention. Just say we have had it all. I once won an honorable mention from his school for having the most unusual pets! So he too takes after his Dad. I not only geographically live in the woods but my house should might as well be called a lodge. Dead animals adorn our walls amongst other woodsy things. SO when we spyed our new friend I could actually say it's...

a gecko, not a geico gecko....