Purple Rain?

Maybe he’s looking up at the sky and waiting for the purple rain to start falling.

Maybe I just don’t know what to write so I borrowed a song title that I love.

What he’s really doing is resting on a purple towel in between his swim team events.

And just maybe he’ll catch a glimpse of some purple rain.

 

Sarah:)

Columbia Swim League – City Meet

Our morning started out with my alarm clock not going off. Luckily I woke up when we were supposed to leave instead. I took the faster shower this side of the Mississippi and we were off to the meet downtown.

The USC pool has been repainted and it looks a billion times better than it did last year.

Charlie swam in five events (two relays) and Ryan swam in four events (two relays). I only have pictures of five events total. Guess I got too excited to pull the camera out for all of them! Since there were multiple heats of each race, we don’t know what the final outcome is. They gave it their all and did awesome! We’ll find out next week what their places were for sure.

       Ryan is swimming backstroke here.                               

   Charlie is swimming freestyle here.

Charlie swims the backstroke. This used to be his least favorite stroke but likes it alright now.

Ryan tries his hand and breastroke.

It’s so hard to believe that the season has come to an end. What will we do Monday morning (or T-F mornings for that matter)? What will we do Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights now? Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll keep busy!
Sarah:)

Teenagers Get Cannonballed

These two teenagers are hard workers who are taking a well-deserved break. They help coach a summer swim team that practices M-F mornings from 7-11, has two afternoon/evening swim meets a week and one evening swim clinic a week. On top of it all, they subject themselves to being splashed by young swimmers' cannon balls on "Free Fridays".  Kudos to hard-working teenagers everywhere!

Click on the button below for more teenagers.


Sarah:)

Sweet Shot Tuesday – My Big Fish

Click on the button for more sweet shots!

Sarah:)

First Day of Swim Team - 2010

It’s hard to believe it’s swim team time again. My second blog post ever was last year at the beginning of swim team. Click on the link below to read all about how last year’s first practice went. What a difference a year makes!
http://randomthoughtsfromamomsperspective.blogspot.com/2009/05/swim-team-and-other-out-of-character.html
This was Ryan’s first practice. All last year he observed. He’s really come out of his shell this year and was ready to participate. I will let the pictures speak to whether or not he enjoyed himself.
 
Charlie had a great time too!
We looked in his folder from last summer and found a fifth place (in the entire Columbia Swim League) metal for his medley relay where he did breaststroke and a tenth place ribbon (again, in the entire Columbia Swim League) for doing freestyle in the freestyle medley. I’ll brag on him for just a moment too. Last year he was awarded the most improved swimmer of his age group! He won many first, second and third place ribbons for various races. He LOVES it!
Sarah:)

A follow-up to the swim team debacle

Six days into practice things are going better. He's coming to the realization that swim team is not just playing in the water for an hour, but swimming laps in correct form. Since he's come to terms with that, he's tolerating it just fine. Just tolerating it because he looks like he's in pain after swimming a few laps but comes out of the pool saying he's enjoyed it.

Swim team and other out of character events

Where do I even start? My once water-loving swimmer boy turned into a fraidy-cat-I-won't-do-it boy. Shock doesn't even begin to put a word to what I was feeling. What happened that made him cry in the pool and get out of the pool sobbing, "I am not doing swim team anymore." Now if Ryan had done that, no biggie. I get that. I wouldn't expect anything else from Ryan, but from Charlie?

After he ran, yes ran, away from me and the pool to go hide in the corner, I fearfully followed him. The look on his face told me he was very upset and this would be an ordeal for both of us to work through. The look on his face coupled with his grunts and fast movements made my mind shutterfly back to him as a 4-year-old that was out of control with his emotions and anger. We worked through a couple of years of anger management issues and thought that we had made some real progress as mother and son. This was it...had our hard work paid off? Was he going to be able to put words to his emotions and tell me how he was feeling, or were we in for a several hour misery fest?

After about 40 minutes of him behind my chair, pacing and watching the other swimmers, he was ready to talk it out. In previous years I would have been more persistent with him to talk to me and figure it out right away. It was embarrassing, but I was doing what I could to ignore that fact.

What it came down to was two separate issues. First he dove in with a vengeance after not swimming in a pool since last summer and assumed he would be just as good as he was last year. Did I mention in was only about 70 degrees? He "lost his breath" and couldn't get it back but had to swim to the other side. He panicked. Losing his breath paired with not living up to his personal expectations of how he would swim right away, spelled disaster.

The good news...he talked it over with me and told me how he was feeling instead of screaming, yelling and going berserk. While he did not rejoin his team that day for practice, he did get in the pool and swam a bit to remember what it felt like and to remind himself that he could swim well.

He plans on giving his all at practice today. I'm anxiously anticipating it.