JP started out not putting his head under the water and wouldn't jump into the pool. The first meet he sloooowly climbed into the water when it was his turn to swim. It was pretty funny. After 2 days of mini team practice he said "Mom, watch me do swim team" and he took a deep breath and stuck his head in the water! For the record I have been trying to get him to willingly put his face in the water for YEARS. JP is my kid that will literally launch himself out of the bathtub when you wash his hair because he hates water in his face so much. At swim team he bonded with one of the mini team helpers the first day and I think he would have done anything that Matthew told him to do. Now at the end of the summer he is putting his head in the water and enthusiastically jumping off the side of the pool!
(Ruthie is in the farthest lane in both videos.)
(The video above is early in the season and the one below is at the end. Roo ended up in the same heat as JP often and always on the other side of the pool from him lol so I don't have a great video of her.)
Ruthie had a rough start to the swim season. She did swim lessons with our coach at the beginning of the year and he told her skill wise she could swim up with the littlest group of big kids. Then before she got in with the big kids she got swimmers ear so she was out for a little while. After that she tried to swim with the bigger kids but she just didn't have the stamina to keep up with the older kids so she headed back to mini team. She was SO much happier and she got in a group that was kids who were swimming about at her level and had a great summer! Next summer she will definitely start out the season with the older kids and I think she'll be very ready by then.
Ellie. Sweet little Ellie. She had a fine season. You know just plugging along. Swimming with her age group. Middle of the pack. Enjoying her (apparently) leisurely swim time. Then she and Emmie decided they wanted to do City Meet. So we get to City Meet. She's ranked towards the bottom of all her events (butterfly, backstroke, freestyle). She swims butterfly and knocks off a second and I'm like hey good job kid! Then she swims backstroke and darn if that little rat didn't knock off FIFTEEN seconds. Nope...I didn't type that wrong. I don't know what she's been doing all season at the meets but WHAT?!? She (of course) won her heat. Then she took 11 seconds off of her freestyle and won her heat again. I mean the pool is fast but it's not that fast! Her free relay also won first in their heat. She had the BEST time at City Meet and was so excited about her blue ribbons! Her mama was pretty excited about her times and her new love for backstroke!
Emmie had big changes this season. When you move up to the 9-10 age group you have to swim 2 laps for each event instead of 1. I say Emmie is my turtle when it comes to swimming. She is not super competitive and she swims the same speed all the time whether it is practice or a meet. But she swims very consistently. She will get in there and swim whatever you tell her to and she will swim it the same speed all the time. The kid would probably be a great distance swimmer. She had a rough City Meet, adding time to her butterfly (which is one of her favorite strokes) and not having a great freestyle swim either. Her other individual event was breaststroke. We had been working on her breaststroke all season and she had made MAJOR improvements throughout the season and could finally swim it legally. Her problem was she would get in a meet and be thinking so hard about doing everything correctly that she would end up over thinking it and get DQ'd. We worked a lot on her breaststroke the week before City Meet. We practiced it and talked a lot about not overthinking what she was doing. SOOO....super excited that not only did she swim breaststroke legally at City Meet but she also dropped 11 seconds! For her former swim coach mama the legal breaststroke was a HUGE win! I was incredibly proud of her. She was overwhelmed by the noise and the crowds and the new situation, was coming off a disappointing swim in butterfly but she totally rallied and got out of her head enough to swim an awesome breaststroke!
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| Our team won the sportsmanship award for our division. |
We had our swim team banquet last week. Each child gets a certificate and then there is a girl and boy high point award for each age group and a girl and boy coach's award for each age group. It was a big night for the big girls because they both won the coach's award for their age group! They were absolutely thrilled and I was so proud of their hard work and good attitudes this season.
We had such a wonderful group of coaches this year and the kids had a fabulous swim season! We can't wait for next year!
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| The kids with our coaches minus one of the coaches who wasn't there. |
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