The best money I spent on my Action Academy superhero training budget this summer: A pool membership at the swim club my family belonged to when I was a kid. Swim lessons were included in the cost of the membership, and my young pool protegés are now officially Aqua A!dan and Sinéad the Mernéad. My daughter (not quite 4) and my son (roughly 5 and a half) can now swim the length of the 25-yard pool, and my fatherly dreams of family surf vacations in the future are becoming more real by the minute.

Here's one of my favorite superhero stories to come out of Action Academy's Atlantean Adventures this summer:

My sister was chillin' on a lawn chair one day, watching over the proceedings on the diving board from a slight distance for me while I swam some laps. My daughter, a pint-sized superhero who actually introduces herself as Dangerg!rl sometimes, was climbing up to the board when all of a sudden somebody else's mom ran over screaming, "Stop! Stop! Who's watching this little girl? She's about to go off the diving board by herself!" Right on cue my little mer-child let out a siren scream of terror, performed a convincing little pratfall off the board and then... swam to the side. Crisis averted, lady. Welcome to Action Academy.

As an added bonus of these kinds of summer adventures, my superkids grew their gills just in time to totally appreciate the watery delights of the Summer Olympics which, I mentioned before, I'm pushing big-time over here as part of my superhero training agenda. Mision accomplished: Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin might as well be Flash and Starfire as far as my own little superheroes are concerned. Superheroes are real.

And here's the interesting part: I've always been a fan of swimming and diving, but my kids have now helped me realize some brand new Olympic obsessions. For instance: Water polo is fascinating, and I'd never paid it much attention until Aqua A!dan decided it was his new favorite thing in the whole world. My daughter wants to know where to sign up for toddler rowing lessons after watching the women's lightweight double sculls ("See how well they work together, Daddy?"), and – speaking of working together – they're now both wishing our swim club had one more diving board so they could pioneer the practice of mixed doubles synchronized cannonballs together.

Here's a glimpse into my future: Now that my kids can each swim the length of the pool, they want me to sign them up for the 8-and-under division of the club's swim team for next summer. Next summer? By then I imagine they'll also be communicating with dolphins and giant squid, summoning tsunamis, and surfing on sharks. I'd be mourning the end of summer – can you believe Kindergarten starts next week? – if I wasn't already looking forward to my first snowboard season on the slopes with them.

Anyway... I'm going to sign off now and take them swimming for a few hours while we kill time waiting for Michael Phelps' next big race tonight. My son: "What's he going to do with all that gold when the Olympics are over? I wonder if he has a piggy bank?" Good question.

(Annie Leibovitz photo above is of Michael Phelps and Julianne Moore from a Disney campaign in Vanity Fair)

– Colin Bane