Flipping Out

Yesterday morning Tracy and I met at the Cheesecake Factory for a fun and inexpensive lunch. They were having a special and their cheesecake slices were only $1.50. My parents took the kids and we had a nice leisurely visit. Ahhhh.....

Anyway, Tracy asked if I knew that Jake could do flips off the side of the pool. (She prefaced by saying she wasn't trying to get him into trouble for anyone already calling her a "tattle-tale".) The flipping thing was definitely news to me. She said she had watched him do it at my parent's house the night before when he was spending the night and they were over swimming. She said he was actually pretty good at it.

Forward to a couple hours later after I'd told Mike this interesting tidbit. So, we headed downstairs where Jake was waiting for me to join him out by the pool. I asked him if he had anything he wanted to show us that he had learned recently. He finally said, "um...I can do some front flips off the side of the pool." I asked how he'd learned to do those and he said, "Grandpa showed me!" Now, being that I haven't actually seen my dad do a front flip in recent years, I wasn't sure about the "showed me" part. Dad confirmed that the only reason Jake was allowed to do a flip off the side was because Jake had brought it up and so my dad assumed he was allowed to do these at our house. Dad also said that after a couple flips at his house Jake announced he was going to do a back flip. To which my dad said, "NO WAY! You can wait for your dad to be here for that!"

So, we followed Jake outside and sure enough, he was doing flips off the side. But he wasn't quite landing on his feet so being the responsible parents we are, we told him to get on the diving board and jump from there. So he did. And landed smack on his back. Oooohh....both Mike and I cringed when we saw that and Jake confirmed it by coming up to the surface and announcing loudly, "I am NOT doing that again!"

But, he did do a few more flips off the side and even tried the diving board again. Then a couple neighborhood girls (girls that babysit him...) came over in an offer to keep him occupied if they could relieve some boredom by swimming with him. Good by me! So, of course Jake had to show off his latest skills for them. After surfacing he started to climb out of the water and half his pants were down - tush exposed. Way to be smooth in front of the ladies!