We were getting ready to leave the pool when Alexander saw it happen.  Grown men flipping into the pool.

“Mom!  I HAVE to learn how to do that!”

“Do what?”

“Flip into the pool!  I need to do that.  It’ll be so awesome!”

Keep in mind – six weeks before, he wouldn’t get into the pool without ensuring that his nails were deeply embedded into my skin.  Now he was insisting that he learn how to flip into a pool?  At four years old?  Yeah, right.

But, hey.  I’m a firm believer that kids need to advocate for themselves, so, if Alexander wanted to learn how to flip into the pool, he needed to go ask.  Undaunted at the prospect of facing grown men, he grabbed my hand and walked across the pool area.

“Can you teach me how to flip into the pool?” he asked.

“You want to flip, little man?  You do it just like this!”  And, off this guy went, flipping into the pool, closely followed by two other flippers.

This is the point where I expected it to end – it sure as hell would have for me!  There’s no way I would throw myself upside down and around to get into the pool.  Not at four and certainly not at 38.  However, Alexander is not me.

He waited for the guys to get out of the pool and halfway through their explanation before running for the edge of the pool.  I held my breath, my heart stuck in my chest.  Alexander jumped – surely he would stop there! – and flipped himself over and into the pool.  And continued to do so for the next thirty minutes.

My heart stopped every time he turned himself upside down.  Every. Single. Time.  His teenage years may send me into cardiac arrest…