Sharks Season Extended

As you can tell from the title - at least one of our Sharks has made the Champs Invitational swim meet tomorrow night! First a little recap on what's happened since my last Sharks post.

Saturday's makeup meet went well. All 4 of the grandparents came to see the big kids swim their backstroke. Ashley & Daniel loved their cheering section. Their times were pretty consistent with their best times from last week. And they both PLACED! Daniel received a 4th and Ashley a 7th.

Monday night was our Divisional swim meet (which means all 3 Sharks teams together) and the last meet to qualify for the Champs Meet. I went into the meet thinking Daniel really had a chance to qualify since he was so close (about 4 seconds) away from the qualifying times. I talked with his coach last week, who said Daniel was now ranked 8th out of all 25 6& under boys and was wondering if we had thought about putting him on the neighborhood year round swim team. Wow, I hadn't even thought of that. With him only 4 and beating 5 & 6 year olds, I guess he could become an excellent swimmer.

Ashley was so very cute at Monday's meet. She seemed a little nervous, understanding that this was her last swim unless she improved (a whole lot!) and qualified. We talked about your mind telling your body that you could do it. Not that you THINK you could do it, but that you could actually DO it. And I repeated to her the one word I think of when I see her swim - POWERFUL. (She loves it when I tell her that.) Ashley was excited and ready for her heat. I was there along the side of the pool cheering her the whole way for Freestyle, and SHE WON HER HEAT! When she got out of the water, the timers were congratulating her and seemed excited. I peeked at their time sheet (yes, I'm one of those moms) and about passed out. Ashley improved her 25m freestyle time 9 seconds. It was just unbelievable. And to top it off - She QUALIFIED for the Champs meet! By less than a tenth of a second. My beautiful daughter was so proud of herself and excited about her new best time.

When it was time for her backstroke event, she was pumped. One of the team moms had written "Turbo" with a button on her upper arm - she told me that you push the button to go super fast. We had another little talk and she was ready to go! Again, as she got down to the end of the pool, I peeked at the time sheet to check her time - Would you believe she QUALIFIED in Backstroke also! She knocked 5 seconds off her time - again qualifying by a tenth of a second. You could have knocked me over and it still wouldn't have taken that huge smile off my face. I told everyone that I knew and even some that I didn't about her success as I walked through the meet. Even after we got home last night, there was still a smile on my face and little tears in my eyes. She made me so proud!

Daniel had a different kind of succesful night at the meet. Due to his increasing times, and one boy missing, Daniel had the opportunity to swim on the Red Shark "A" freestyle relay team - a first for him. He loved to get the chance to swim on a relay with the "big" boys. He was also placed in the "A" heats to swim free and backstroke (that's the heats with the fastest times). Daniel understood he was swimming against the really good (and big) 6 year old boys and seemed to revel in it. Its so funny because the other moms don't realize he is only 4!

I took a great video of him as he came down the pool as the 3rd person in the relay. (I'm a boy 6 & under team parent, so no one balks at me being everywhere with the kids - at least not that I know of).

Our Munchkin boy wasn't really focused on trying to qualify at this meet to keep swimming, like Ashley, he was concerned that this was his last meet to get some PIZZA. From the time we got there, he wanted to know when I would buy his pizza. That's my boy, worried about his stomach. And it didn't help that he was lined up on the blocks for the relay and it started thundering (it had already rained on us), so we had to go back and wait it out. All of the boys in our tent were chowing on food.

He swam really well, and I had my hopes up for him to beat his best times, but he was very consistent to last week. His times were par with his best, so no Champs meet for him tomorrow. He really didn't seem to care because he placed and recieved medals in the awards ceremony, which he loved.

The difficult thing to explain to little kids is why Ashley beat Daniel's time by 10 seconds on Free and 7 on Back, but he placed in the boys division, receiving Medals, yet she didn't. The girls at 6 & under are faster than the boys and there are so many more girls than boys (overall, about 35 girls to 25 boys). Ashley found it little consolation during the awards ceremony that she qualified while seeing her brother wearing his new medals. I think she got over it once the realization set in that she gets to keep swimming with her friends tomorrow. (Approximately 20 girls qualified in at least one event out of 35 6 & under girls. Only 8 boys qualified out of 25 6 & under boys. Big difference)

Tomorrow night is the Champs Meet and I'm very excited and Proud. I don't have any expectations for her besides having lots of fun and to enjoy the experience. Not in a million years did I think we would be going to the meet tomorrow to watch Ashley. Nope, it was going to be for Daniel.

Just when you think you have your kids figured out, they go and surprise you! And make you more proud than you thought possible.

Congratulations to my little Red Sharks.

(Pic -Ashley with her trophy at the Banquet Saturday night).