Many of our friends are on one of the six local swim teams. I never thought that I could work the evening practice times into my schedule until this year. Now, I can see what they love about it!
With my youngest child able to participate and the boys wanting to join, this turned out to be a great addition to our summer. We all made friends and the kids' swimming improved tremendously.
The practices were every evening, M-Th for two hours. During that time, I chatted with the other Moms or read. The younger kids swam for an hour and then the older kids the second hour. When they weren't swimming, the kids played Four Square on the concrete or we walked to the playground beside the pool. I had to cook dinner early and serve it by five o'clock or we ate when we got home.
Being new this year, we opted out of the first two Meets, but then the kids signed up and began competing. That was very exciting! The Meets are very well run with an efficient use of time.
Those finishing a race remain in the water until the next racers dive over them to start swimming.That really keeps things moving!
At the beginning of the Meet, each swimmer writes on their arm in permanent marker their event number, the heat they are in, their lane number and the stroke. It is their responsibility to be standing in line ready to swim four events ahead of time. If you aren't ready, they don't wait- the race takes off without you. You can imagine my stress level at our first meet trying to help our kids to get in line for four events each. By the end of the season they didn't need me to help them much at all!
There are four strokes they swim, Freestyle (the crawl), Breaststroke, Backstroke and the Butterfly. Sam swam in a few relays too.
Our Coach was in her 17th year of coaching this team. She also coached Cindi and Jeff. I remember seeing Jeff's many ribbons from these swim meets but sadly, I don't remember attending one before! Where the heck was I? I must have been at home with a bunch of younger children. Jeff was driving himself at that age. I really regret missing the Meets that he was in. I also wondered why I hadn't put the girls on this team, however, they actually tried it for a few days, years ago. It wasn't their thing and we got our money back. Instead, we've been going to horse farms for eight years!
The time was just right to be able to enjoy having the three younger kids in the same activity at the same time and place! They have all become stronger swimmers and have developed many muscles.
Natalie, holding Hank who can someday swim on this team with our kids because the age range is 5-18, enjoyed some of the practices also. She would stand by the pool and talk with her friends.
Joining the Swim Team was a marvelous way to spend many evenings and a few Saturday mornings this summer. We all look forward to doing it next year, God willing!
