After almost two years of weekly swim lessons at Goldfish, Mallory graduated to the swim team. At her first swim team practice, they told us that we should just let her swim for 30 minutes or so because it will be a big adjustment from her 30-minute swim lessons but at the 29 minute mark of the one hour swim team practice, she was breathing heavy on the side of the pool, but she didn’t give Rick or me any indication that she was ready to get out of the pool. At the end of practice, I think the coach said they did like 1200 yards (48 lengths?) and Rick said that seemed like a lot so maybe I don’t remember what the coach said.
Anyway, Mallory quickly wanted to sign up for her first swim “meet” (which was basically just an intersquad scrimmage). She wanted to swim 25-freestyle and 25-backstroke and she didn’t want to swim the relay.
But then the morning of her swim meet, she started to get cold feet and told Rick she wasn’t sure she wanted to do the meet because she was going to have to race. Um, OK.
But then she changed her mind again and was ready to go by the time we had to leave for the pool. Her first event was the 25-free and she was in a race with one other little girl. My kid, who acted like she didn’t want to race, swam her little heart out and she won her first swimming race. I may have had tears in my eyes, I was so proud. Not that she’d won (well, that was cool too), but mostly because she faced her fear and kicked it in the ass.
Here she is – she’s in the top lane for this race:
She came running out to give me her blue ribbon and had the HUGEST smile on her face. She blew me a kiss and hustled back out on the deck with the other kids to get ready for her second event.
This time she was up against two other little girls (in the middle lane) and she came in second. Look at how fast her arms were flying!
Again she came running out to give me her ribbon and was still so pumped about her races. I think I would like it if she wanted to be a swimmer as she gets bigger (I think I would like it more than competition dance, etc) so I am so excited that her first meet was such a positive experience for her.
And when your kid looks this cute and this proud and this happy after something, I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing it again. Great job, pumpkin head!!
