Lets not pretend that my skill, knowledge or experience was enough to convince my 6-year-old that Mommy had anything helpful to offer him. No no, it was at least half way through the season before he started listening to my tips and instructions. And wouldn't you know it, at the meet held a few days after he and I spent time in our own pool working on his racing start, the head scorekeeper (not knowing he was my son) commented "Wow? Nice Dive!" I can't catch a football or make a 3-point shot to save my life, but I can swim.
But I guess Sam's first season on swim team really isn't about me, sigh. Although I did enjoy myself. Yes the meets were long and the practices were every day, but they were only a half hour and it insured that I would get to chat with a friend every single day. And Annabelle would get a mini-playdate every day (yay for sports siblings!). And it got us to the playground, conveniently located just outside the pool gates, every single day. While this did make for a busy end to the school year, especially on the few night that we went straight from swimming to baseball, it proved to be invaluable once school let out. The scheduled practice and built-in park time gave us structure to our mornings. The physical activity first thing in the morning took the edge off of everyone's pent-up summer energy. The social interaction kept us from getting sick of each other. It was a very good thing.
Chris did not love swim team this year. He was only responsible for one practice (I was out of town) and five meets, but the meets proved to be too much for him. Apparently he "wasn't properly warned" about what swim team would entail. How on Earth does a boy who grew up in Florida not understand how swim team works? Alas, he did not. And he did not enjoy entertaining a bored 3 year old for a few hours while we waited around to watch Sam swim for a total of 1:40 while I fulfilled our family's volunteer responsibility. I think next year we might let him do the volunteer jobs so that he feels he has a bit more purpose with his time at the pool.
Now Sam. He both enjoyed and succeeded at swim team. Turns out, this was his first sport that was scored. And the beauty of swim team is that you get a ribbon for every. single. time. you get in the water at a meet, even if you finish dead last. That sat very well with Sam. Should we talk about how adorable it was that so many 6 and unders were more concerned with “collecting all the colors” or getting “a pink one!” than they were with getting a blue one?!
The 6 and under age group only swims Freestyle and Backstroke. This worked out really well for Sam, who has not yet been taught the other strokes. Mind you, by the end of the season he had convinced himself he could do Butterfly and consistently chose it on his “free choice” lap at the end of practice. I assure you, his Butterfly would only be legal during a Freestyle race at this point in the game.
So Sam swam freestyle, backstroke and landed himself a spot of a free relay in every meet. We got to watch him swim 3 times and were done before the half-time break. It appears that our time and money invested in swim lessons paid off, because he was consistently in the first heat of both strokes and finished well at every meet. At the third meet he dropped his freestyle time by several seconds – down in the 27 second range! Consistency is not his strong suit yet, and his times vary by a second or two depending on his mood, the weather, or how the game of Trouble went in the ready bench tent right before he swam. Oh, and how motivated he was to go spend his dollar at the concession stand.
We were fortunate to have all four dual meets at our neighborhood pool, even the one where we were the “away” team. This all changed when Sam qualified for Meet of Champs at the end of the season, to be held in a high school natatorium (I think I have PTSD) halfway across Katy. Team tents were set up in the parking lot. Due to limited seating, you were only allowed into the natatorium one event prior to the one your child was swimming (Ok so it was a bit of a pain, but that did mean that everyone inside got a FULL SEAT, it wasn’t 8000 degrees, and you could see the pool). It took a few events for the league ready bench volunteers to get their jobs figured out, which made for some awkward moments for us team ready bench volunteers. In one particularly chaotic, disorganized moment when I was being told to just “leave the kids here” my mama heart nearly panicked. Until a woman wearing the same t-shirt as me, who must have been the mom of an older swimmer as we’d never met, looked me in the eye and said “I’ve got them.”
Sam earned a medal for his backstroke at Meet of Champs. (Maybe next year he’ll let me teach him to count his strokes from the flags and we can cut a few more seconds off his time.) And it was exactly the right time to end things. We were ready to be done and move on to our other big summer plans…
Oh, Sam and I competed in the parent-child relay at the end of the season party. It took some convincing (by his beloved Senior Swimmers) to get him to participate, but he was glad that he did. An hour laster, as I was about to tell him to dry off, time to go, I look over and see him playing, laughing, loving a group of senior swimmers. I just didn't have the heart to pull him away. What's another ten minutes, right?
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