Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is known for collecting medals: with a whopping 28 Olympic medals, he’s by far the most decorated Olympian of all time. But now retired, the 38-year-old is collecting something far more precious: family memories. And with the arrival of his fourth son on January 16, there are now many more memories to make!
Phelps and his wife Nicole posted a joint post to Instagram to announce their new arrival, saying: “@mrs.nicolephelps and I wanna welcome Nico Michael Phelps to the world. Born on 1/16. We’re so blessed to be given a 4th child,” the caption continued. “We’re now a family of 6! .”
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Nico Michael (how cute is it that he is named after both of his parents??) joins big brothers Boomer, 7, Beckett, 5, and Maverick, 4. Phelps jokes that being the only girl around, Nicole is definitely the “queen” in their house.
“I think Nicole said something along the lines of, like, ‘I’m so lucky to have a house full of boys and no girls,’ and Boomer looked at her and said, ‘Mommy, you’re the girl in our house.’ So we’ve been saying that and it’s true, she’s the queen,” Phelps told PEOPLE.
Phelps says one of the best things the boys and their queen do to create memories as a family is have dinner together. “As a kid, I always wanted to have dinner as a family but with my parents separated, that didn’t happen often,” he says. “I love how we have dinner every night together at the same exact time.”
Dinner together also gives the family time to talk and communicate with each other about what’s going on, which can be huge in creating a healthy family dynamic. One thing they talk about is emotions. Throughout his adult life, Phelps has been open about his own mental health and an advocate for everyone else’s. He and Nicole say that the mental health conversation is always an open one in their own household full of boys.
“They talk about their emotions,” Michael said of his sons. “It gives me a lot of hope. I just want them to be as prepared as they can be.”
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