Swim Team

I love to be at the swimming pool, love to swim. I am so glad I know how to swim, that it will be a life long form of exercise for me. One of my favorite things is swimming laps in an outdoor pool on a warm day. For all those reasons, I think fondly of swim team and summers at the pool while growing up. Today I remembered a few other things from those swim team days. I remembered the hard parts: gasping for breath, feeling as if you would never make it to the other side. I remembered clinging to the ropes, wanting so badly to be done.

Yesterday was the first day of swim team, and Caroline, who has never really swam on her own, suddenly jumped in and "swam" across the pool during her evaluation. Henry, on the other hand, did not even bother with the evaluation and just headed promptly to the beginner section. Caroline was placed in a group where everyone has been swimming much longer than her. Today, they started practice by telling her to swim two laps freestyle. She doesn't even know how to kick her legs and move her arms at the same time! She just went right along with it. I watched in amazement and fear. And this was followed by more laps, and more laps. I watched her growing fatigue from the sidelines and remembered the hard parts of struggling to keep up with better swimmers. As a mother, it was painful. Yet I know she would be bored in the beginner group. So hard to watch her learn to swim on her own, make her own way, struggle with her own limits and rise to her own challenges. I saw a little girl with fierce determination and was amazed. No complaints, no whining. 12 laps when prior to this she had never made it out of the shallow end. Swim team is tough.