Phoebe takes the diving board

I swear we were at the pool for at least six hours today, between swim practice and recreational swimming. It was hot this afternoon, so we went to the pool and friends kept coming and wouldn't stop coming (to loosely quote Smash Mouth), which made it rather hard for us to make an exit. At one point we had about a dozen kids from swim team at the pool (most of the homeschoolers, too). 

They played Wax Museum, Go/Go/Go/Stop, What Time is it Mr. Shark, Sharks and Minnows, Refrigerator, and all kinds of things. Sometimes my kids were among the youngest there—and Benjamin and Zoë were particularly delighted when some older (more teenager-y) friends ordered a pizza, had it delivered at the pool, and then offered a slice when they realized they wouldn't finish. Other times Benjamin was the oldest one there and was delighted that he was the uncatchable one during Sharks and Minnows (because that wasn't the case when the older swimmers were at the pool). 

Phoebe got bored of it just being me and her in the shallow end and requested to play in the deep end. She has never done this before. She likes to stay where she can touch if she needs to (if only on her tippy-tippy toes) and we've had to coax and encourage her to believe that her swimming skills are the same in any depth of water (if you can swim in 4 feet of water you can swim in 10 feet of water...or 40 feet of water...or whatever). She hasn't yet willingly gone to the deep end this summer, but today she did. 

The kids were having a diving contest and she decided she wanted to participate. 

"Sure, you can go off the diving board..." I told her, though I didn't believe she would.

She has always chickened out before (or has needed a lot of assistance to make it off the end of the board—like, having me lower her down while someone catches her at the bottom). Not today!

Today she walked right out there and jumped in the pool. She pulled herself up to a floating position on the surface of the water and started swimming to me like a champ!

And then proceeded to do it about a dozen more times!

Here's a video Benjamin took (while the teenagers were eating pizza, and before pizza was offered to Benjamin):

She did great today! 

And then she was moved to play in the 3 feet zone with the kids when they were playing Wax Museum and things instead of staying in the 2.5 feet zone where she's played the past few years. 

Soon she won't need me in the pool at all! What will I do without a baby to play with at the pool?!

I'll have to start...swimming laps again...or something...