Swimming

We finished a great summer swim season a week ago. It was a busy swim season. This was my second year on the swim team board and I felt like for the first few weeks all we did was swim team.  I was also in charge of concessions so that meant extra work.

The kids were big helpers loading and unloading the food each week. 

The kids just loved it. Even Joel.  And he hasn't mentioned his retirement now that swimming is over. Every year he retires adamantly but this year he's already talking about next summer.   Norah was our fastest 6 year old in both back and free.  She worked hard and towards the end realized the goal was first place so she would go out there and get first almost every time.

A far cry from two years ago and even last year when she wouldn't get in the water with out Anna in there with her.  I told Anna she can take credit for the fact that Norah is an All Star swimmer now.

Joel swam with a swim shirt all season.  He refused to take it off because kids would make fun of him without it.  In fact one kid made fun of him but it helped that none of the other kids liked this particular child and the coaches didn't like him either.  Joel made Divisionals so he couldn't swim with a swim shirt. He made it in breastroke, free and a relay.  I told him he couldn't let his dream team relay down so he took off his shirt. And he swam without his shirt no problem. And dropped at least 3 seconds each time! And proud of his friends who made him feel like it was no big deal that he took off his shirt and swam. 

Colin has made Divisionals the past few years.  At the end of the season they take the top two swimmers in each event.  Then after all the Divisional swim meets in our league they then take the top 12 swimmers in each event. He missed out on All Stars last year by 0.10.  All Stars is a really big deal. I keep telling him that Divisionals is a big deal. He is on a team of 148 swimmers and we took 48 to Divisionals so even that was huge.  But he wanted All Stars. And he knew next year he was moving up into the 13/14 age group and probably wouldn't have a chance.  We all knew Norah was going to All Stars and I was fully prepared to have her make it and not Colin.

After the Divisional swim meet we brought back 5 other swim team boys to play at our house.  They were all in relays together and were all desperately hoping to make All Stars. One of the Dads is our team rep and was at the All Star meeting for hours and hours and when he finally came the kids all bombarded him for who made the team..... ok maybe it was just me! ha! but I was so happy that each kid at my house that night made All Stars!!  There was much rejoicing.  Colin walked around that entire weekend saying "I made it! I can't believe I made it"

These two were so funny to watch in practice. They would treat each lap as a sprint and try to beat each other every time.  One time Norah just swam right over Emerson and he didn't care. He told his mom that he and Norah were nice swimming together.  Some of the other kids weren't so nice I guess. Its also sweet because his grandma grew up with my dad and uncles. We had been good friends for two years before her uncle put two and two together.

Colin always went and found Norah before each of her races to encourage her. It was really sweet.

This is really why we continue to swim and also continue on this same team. These boys are all just the best of friends and its fun to watch them encourage each other and also push each other to get faster.

Norah HATES backstroke. One night before she swam back she was talking herself out of it and I said remember watching Hannah swim backstroke on tv?  We still have it saved on our DVR and watch it from time to time. I said Hannah qualified for the Olympic trials, she is your cousin and you share the same DNA so you can go out there and swim one lap of back.  She thought for a minute - got in and swam, getting first and from then all would always ask me to tell her "mommy tell me about Hannahs blood inside me" hahaha but whatever worked because she usually came in first or second each time.

I call them now my All Stars.  Norah swam for her medals.  Joel swam his dream team relay - I started calling it that because it was all his best friends on the team.  Colin swam 4 events in All Stars and while the medals are nice he loves the tshirt with his name on it and also the fact that his name is on the All Star times all year for people to use as a reference to beat next summer. It was a great season.