I’d love to see my children take swimming lessons during their summer vacation. But for one reason or another, the lessons have never been taught to them. The result? When they jump into a pool, they drop to the bottom like millstones.

You see, my eldest daughter doesn’t want to take swimming lessons, because she’d rather stay in the shade and preserve her “kutis porcelana.”

My second daughter tried to start her lesson, but her instructor didn’t explain to her the specialized vocabulary of swimmers. So when the instructor told her, “Today I’ll teach you about breast strokes,” she screamed at his face and told him, “Hoy, mag-swimming kang mag-isa, huwag mo lang pakialaman ang breasts ko!”

She never wanted to take swimming lessons again after that incident.

My teen-age son had a similar experience. The instructor told him, “I’ll teach you doggie style today.” My son scampered from the swimming pool, because doggie style, as he had learned from reading adult magazines, is a position taken during sexual intercourse. He thought the swimming instructor was a gay sex maniac out to molest him, so he ran away.

My fourth child, another son, doesn’t want to have a swimming instructor. He wanted to self-teach himself. It was fine with me, as his independence saved me a lot of money. He has been teaching himself how to swim for seven years now, and he still can’t float for more than 10 seconds. At the rate he is going, I figure he will learn how to float for 30 seconds by the 14th year of his self-study. He’s taking his sweet time learning to swim.

My youngest child, another son, doesn’t want to swim. He wants to walk on water like his daddy. So he has been pestering me for the secret of the magic trick “Walking on Water.” Ambitious child, I should say. I hope he will not start a religion one of these days.

So there. Not one of my children can swim. All they know is “tampisaw” in the pool. I think “tampisaw” is Tagalog for bathing like a duck.

Stay magical,

Leodini
Make Your Child Happy on Her Birthday
www.leodini.com