Well y’all, we’ve finally entered the world of swim team and our inaugural season is off to a FUN start!! It pleases me to no end that my littles finally decided to dive in to this quintessential summer sport. I swam straight through high school, was a lifeguard for eight years, and taught countless littles how to swim during that time. Learning to be a strong swimmer is priceless and, in my mind, swim team is a GREAT way to accomplish that!
Seeing as my littles are up with the sun, it’s been no problem getting to the morning practices. In fact, I love that it gets us up and at ‘em early in the day. We’ve now got two meets under our belt and the progress is just remarkable. Both have shaved between 6 and 15 seconds off of their race times on EVERY event in one week’s time. And the difference from the first day of practice back in mid-May is just incredible. The baby has been swimming in the free relay and doing individual freestyle and backstroke events. He’s the youngest kid on the whole swim team, but he doesn’t let that hold him back. He started the season stopping to hold onto the rope and mid-way through he’s just powering straight down the pool. Of course, the limitless supply of friends, candy and treats is really where it’s at for him :-)
I have particularly loved swim team for John because he started off really not very good at it. And John is one to just not do something if he’s not the best at it. He has cheered on his friends, his team AND stuck with it himself getting better by the day. Honey and I are SO proud of him for stepping up for the challenge of the individual IM when he worked himself into such a tizzy over it that he got a stomach ache. I feel like this is the first time in his life that it hasn’t been about winning for him. It’s more about finishing and trying to beat his own individual best. And, he’s having FUN to boot! He absolutely adores being in the “bull pen” with his school, ball and church pals and staying out until some pretty ungodly hours of the night :-)
The morning after meets, we forego practice for donuts, ribbons and games. A sweet reward after a long week of hard work!!
Thank ALL of you for all of your tips and tricks for surviving meets. Honey and I are having as much fun as the littles!!
xoxo
How adorable is John up on that starter's block?! I think it's a "first born" thing – the not wanting to compete if they're not the BEST. My own Ryan is that way, as well as countless of his "first" friends. Good for John for hanging in there & improving himself! And good for Whit for working so hard too; you can tell by the pictures he has a blast wherever he goes!
I was just telling my boss this morning how I'm noticing more and more kids doing swim team these days.
Where I grew up(Louisiana)no one did that. Probably because it's about a thousand degrees down there in the Summer.
So fun;) my kiddos' first meet of the season is next week. I think learning to swim well is a priceless gift, especially here in Charleston, SC! We are surrounded by water on all sides;) So I see that we are not the only ones who mark all over ourselves with a sharpie!!! That cracks me up, but the kids love it!!! Mandy
So much fun! They look like they are having a blast!!
Our first meet is tomorrow morning (7am warm-up). We've never done this before, so I also appreciated all your readers' tips. Thanks for the timely post.
My youth days were filled with great memories and swim team is up there! I loved it!
The perfect backstroke is only surpassed by the purple stained lips! Good 'ole summertime!
Jane, San Diego
Amanda, you just brought back lots of memories from my swim days in Savannah. What summer-league team were you on? Funny story – my husband and I first crossed paths in our swim team days and then reconnected 15 years later. He was a serious swimmer – through college and beyond; I just did it for fun. Best of luck to the boys this summer!