Maria continues to bolster her nickname “the Muscle.” I met M&M at the pool this afternoon after they called me at work and begged me to meet them. They were sugared up on strawberry ice cream bars when I arrived. They were ready to wrestle with me in the water.

After wrestling for some time, Mario decided to hit the diving boards. Maria followed. They dove off together a couple of times. Then I noticed that there was a little boy jumping off the low dive with Mario who was teasing him by blocking the top of the ladder so Mario couldn’t climb up out of the water. Maria noticed this little boy right after I did and instead of watching the stand-off take place like me, she marched right over to the ladder and looked him the eye and scolded him to “stop bothering my brother!”

She pulled Mario up out of the water and then she ran to the low dive only to beat both Mario and the other boy. Then she allowed Mario to take her place so he could jump before the other boy.

Our girl doesn’t mess around – and don’t you know that boy didn’t so much as look at Mario the rest of our time at the pool – and he definitely avoided Ri!