Beautiful Swim

I have three kids. I'm busy. Any mom with kids is busy. Too busy. Swim team is the worse sport a mom can put their kids in if they are already busy. Practice. Every Day. 2 kids equals 2 hours. Daily.

Then there's the swim meets. Saturday. Nearly all day. At least 6 hours. Get up by 6:30. Its a bit cold. Get to the pool. Warm up. The meet smells like chlorine and baked potatoes. Luckily I love baked potatoes. For 1.50 I can buy a HUGE potato with all the fixings I want. Its a bit dangerous because baked potatoes only taste as good as they smell when one puts a copious amount of butter, sour cream and cheese on top. (yum)

But swim meets are not about the food. They're about competition. So I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old on the team. Its a lot of hurry up and wait. You have to be there on time, sign in, write your event number, heat number and lane number on your arm with a sharpie. Oh, and put the information on the child's arm too but at this age they don't really pay attention anyways so the writing on the parents arm is more important than on the kids.

So then its a lot of waiting, getting the kids where they need to be, feeding them, etc. But I don't get to do that. I'm "working". My work? I'm the photographer. Its the best job at the pool but its a lot of work. For some reason, I think I leave the event more tired and sore than my my little fish. I typically take over 3000 photos of the kids.

So Saturday was our first meet. My kids did really well. 6 year olds are so cute to watch swim. It doesn't matter which team you are on, everyone cheers for the 6 and unders. They are just THAT cute. And determined. Nothings cuter than watching a 5 or 6 year old attempt the butterfly stroke. Nothings sweeter than seeing the tired but ecstatic grin on his face when he gets out.
I love it. Its worth it.

Today both my boys received the ribbons they won at the meet. C, my 9 year old, improved his time on all three strokes. My 6 year old, R, took a 5th place, 6th place and a 10th place. No improved times though. He's very proud of his ribbons. I'll post a picture tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a few I took at the meet. None are my kids.