Back, fly, breast and free

I noticed today that we have a new set of words in our vocabulary at home now that we are a swim team family.  Saturdays are proving to be exhausting lately with swim meets in the morning and misc. Saturday stuff the rest of the day.  Our family is loving the swim season with the Gators though.  This being our first year, we certainly jumped in head first (no pun intended).  My Man is Co-Pres. of the team for the next two years, and we just might have all 4 kids swimming next year if little Squidy can make it across the pool by then.  Each of the kids has an older buddy that helps them out during the meets, brings them treats, meets them with their towel at the end of each race, and allows them to hang out at the big kid side of the lawn.  All our kids are loving the older attention and figuring out things to make or give to their buddies every Saturday.  Even little Syd has made some good friends.  She doesn't mind spending so much time at the pool if we have enough books and food to keep her busy.  We love the happy, friendly vibe of our team, and it's SO nice that all the kids can participate in a sport at the same time and place.  I'd much rather hang out at the pool for two hours a day for practice than shuttle kids to three different sports through out the week.  

Our little fish have improved immensely since the beginning of practice.  Mr. Cooper could barely make it across the pool while hanging onto the lane line for a couple rests.  Now he has a basic grasp of all four strokes, and won THREE first in heat ribbons on Saturday.  I'm bummed I didn't record his awesome freestyle race for which he earned a blue ribbon for the event.  Toby loves the backstroke and is also improving quickly in all aspects.  We just need to remind him how things work during a relay, so that he doesn't accidentally start the first leg of the relay as the #2 man from the opposite side of the pool.  Yep, he got a little too excited and before we could stop him he was off at the starting beep.  The kid who was supposed to start was either not ready or saw Toby starting and backed off.  Check out his coach's reaction right above him in the pics below.  Nnnnoooooooooo!  He swam a great lap too.  Figures right? 

Notice the other coach on the left looking Toby's way and blocking her swimmer from making the same mistake.  Also, take note of the awkward flop into the pool.  What's that all about?  The kid is capable of much nicer entries into the water.  Here's proof;   

The best part is Toby didn't even know he went early until I told him after the race.  My sweet Toby; he really does march to his own beat sometimes...... 

Jessie has been the wild card in this whole swim team situation.  She was the most nervous at the beginning of the year to be on the team.  I am not ashamed to say we pretty much made her try it.  J went from a beginning swimmer who wouldn't go under the water without plugging her nose to an awesome swimmer who learns quickly and improves more each week. She has found the swimming stroke that she loves, and it just happens to be butterfly which I think is the hardest.  Since this girl can out swim me with this stroke, and the fact that she has improved so much since the first day of practice in April, I am so pleased that I caught this race on film.

The kids are having fun being at the pool every day, hanging out with their buddies, making new friends and learning all that goes into swimming back, fly, breast and free strokes.  Now that I think about it, Mom and Dad are having a good time too.