swim team

Nick joined the swim team this year. He's six, and doesn't swim too well, but all the parents told us that it was the perfect time to start. He'd learn to swim, have fun, yada yada. So far, though, practice has been a lot of standing in line waiting his turn. Somehow he doesn't seem to mind--maybe because all the kids get suckers at the end. Maybe because being in line with your buddies is not such a bad way to spend fifteen minutes here and there. I don't quite get it, but he seems to like it.

So last night was the first swim meet. Meets start at six, with warmups at five. We got to the pool (it was an away meet) at 4:45, just as a huge storm broke. Thunder and lightning crashed around us as rain fell in buckets. We were told that the meet would probably be held anyway; they wait half an hour after the last thunder is heard before letting anyone in the pool, so we should wait in our cars until then. Yeah, right. We decided to drive up to the university--Mark needed to check out a book. It would be about a half hour round trip. so we'd be fine even if the thunder stopped right away.

It didn't. As we drove through campus, we nearly hydroplaned a couple of times in the downpours. The road was flooding. Mark went up the long flight of stairs to the library, and we watched a waterfall pour down it. Mariah began complaining of a headache so we drove her home. Lightning jagged through the sky. When we got home I looked up the number for the pool; it was still thundering overhead. The guy who answered the phone said the thunder had stopped there and they'd be starting warmups soon, so we got back in the car and headed out again. It was now almost six.

Mariah stayed home to nurse her headache. By the time we got to the pool, the sun was shining and you'd never have known that a violent storm had just blown through, except we'd seen a bad car wreck and several tree limbs down on our way. Someone was even parked in the lot with their top down!

The scene at the pool was chaotic. Kids and parents all over the place. Most of the kids had "Go Granite" or "Dangerous When Wet" in sharpie marker on their backs. The little kids huddled together nervously. They hadn't started warming up yet, so Nick went and sat with the other "mini-mites" and waited.

Eventually, he swam. He was in the second heat of little kids doing the 25-yard freestyle. He jumped in (not off the blocks), and almost immediately veered to the right so he could grab the lane line. (They let the little kids do that.) He probably ended up on the lane line four or five times in the heat, but he eventually finished (last, but who's counting?). He looked wiped out as he came out of the pool--almost as if he couldn't see us.

So that was our first swim meet experience. Despite the late start (it was almost 7 before he was done, and no dinner beforehand) and the thunder and lightning, the crowds and the confusion, he swam his heat and finished, which was the only goal we'd set. Luckily he seems not to mind that he's not winning--in lots of things he's pretty competitive despite not having the skills, and then is devastated when he loses. Not this time, thankfully.

Swimming is its own little world. There are parents who do "strokes and turns," judging to make sure the kids are doing them right. There are timers and runners and announcers and starters and herders (well, that's what I call them--they get the kids from place to place). There are parents who walk in knowing what a 100-yard IM is. We don't live in this world, but we'll be visiting it this summer.