Swim Team 2017

When we lived in Manassas, most of our friends signed their kids up for swim team each summer.  They were always trying to convince me to do it, too, but I always resisted.  It just felt like WAY too much work.  Plus, my kids couldn't actually swim, so I didn't understand how that was possible...

Right after Camille was born, I was finally ready to try (with the help of a friend who offered to take Bentley on days when I couldn't manage it) and then we found out we were moving.  So that never happened.  And then last summer we were going to Disney World, so I didn't see the point in trying.

But this summer we finally did it!  We signed up Bentley, Kendra and Ryder, but then Ryder was not able to pass the (very basic) swim test, so just the two oldest kids were on the team.  (Ryder got signed up for the two week swim class instead, and came away actually able to swim, so that was its own sort of success.)  I was very nervous for how this would all work out, but it turned out to be a really good experience.

Speaking of nervous, this was how Bentley felt about his first meet

Kendra put on a braver face, but she was pretty nervous, too

Now-- a couple things were different that made it a lot more do-able for us.  First of all, the swim team here meets at 9:15, as opposed to the one in Manassas, which met at 7am.  I'm a huge fan of the later time.  And the meets in Manassas were always Saturday morning at 7, but usually an hour away, so you'd need to leave before 6am to get there.  Since Craig and I are NOT morning people and he always had his summers off in Manassas, that all sounded miserable to us.  We liked our lazy summers of sleeping in every day.  But here, he has to go to work like a normal person with a normal job, and getting out the door before 9 is something I can do.  Also, the meets here are on Wednesday evenings.  I'd much rather lose a Wednesday night than a Saturday morning.

Then, we got an added bonus of a bunch of our neighbors also signing up and working out a carpool where they just took my kids for me.  (This was before we bought our big van, and they knew I couldn't fit any extra kids in my car, but they figured I could use the help.  I have really great neighbors.)  As soon as we bought the new van, I joined in on the carpooling efforts, but I got a sweet deal for those first couple of weeks!

Plus, Camille isn't a baby any more, so all the little kids could play on the playground during practice, rather than me having to carry her around while I chased after the other little ones.  Anyway, all this to say that swim team here felt like a lot less work than it would have been in Manassas a few years ago. 

Kendra competing in back stroke

Bentley doing the same

But enough about my own convenience.  The real win with doing swim team (which is what all my friends already knew) was getting my big kids outside and exercising every morning AND learning to swim better.  I felt like they were happier because of it, and it's been really nice watching their skills improve.  Their team tried to focus on their individual progress, so they'd get ribbons every time they improved their time-- since Bentley and Kendra started out pretty awful (sorry, but it's true-- they really could just barely swim at all), they would get time improvements every week!  Bentley improved by 13 seconds one week!  One time, Bentley's race included doing the butterfly for 25 meters-- he certainly couldn't do that at the beginning of the summer!  So that was fun for them and fun for Craig and I to see, too.

They had their awards dinner on Tuesday and we came home with this:

I'm very proud of my kids for working so hard.

I hate to admit it, but we may have to do this again next summer...!

Added bonus: I also figured out that swim goggles are the BEST solution to keep me from crying when I chop onions!