My Little Barracudas

It's the summer and time once again for swim team with the Bellair Barracudas! Isaac has had the chance to show what age, discipline and maturity can do for his growing abilities. He's much more focused this year and we have seen him improved by leaps and bounds. He has improved his times in each and every swim meet with the exception of one. he was much more serious about his stroke class as well and surpised us with his butterfly swim at one of the meets. His arms were clear out of the water and he had a rhythm to his body motion that had me do a double take to make sure I was cheering the right kid. We are so proud of him and his hard work. We've just learned to our surprise that he qualifies to swim for the championships in the backstroke. We're so excited for him!

We also enrolled Keila this year. She was always such a fishy girl from the start and we thought she'd take to it right away. Unfortunately we underestimated the how much pressure she felt in the set up of swimming down a lane and had many battles over just going to practices. We reached a truce of sorts, I needed her to be able to swim an appreciable distance for me to feel safe with her in the water. (Planning for the next summer when I will have another baby in addition to Eli to worry about). So she agreed to swim practices without fighting as long as she had time for fun swimming and didn't need to do the meets. What she can't see during practices is how strong and able she is to swim the whole 25m. She's always the last to start and pauses along the way and yet she is one of the first to finish. Her coaches say she is a natural and has the motion of butterfly down and just needs to work on her arms. But the key is that she doesn't feel ready and it seems that no matter what we say to her, she doesn't have the confidence to make the go. For a time I would push it, but then I realized I just needed to respect her choice and realize that she is still just four years old and that confidence will come with age and maturity. In reality she amazes me already with how strong she's become and I never had her ability or courage at her age. It's funny how as a parent we see how much they can do and push for them to see it to. Sometimes it just takes encouragement and some nudging but other time, like in this case, she needs her space to decide for herself. I looked back on old posts, especially when it came to potty training. It is always the first major battle of wills with my kids and sure enough, she just needed to make that choice herself. I supplied the tools and taught her the skills and when she was ready, she owned it and made the choice. I needed to be patient and allow her that agency. I have a feeling this is a lesson I need to remember because I sure there will be many more of these moments in the future.

Keila won't let me take pictures of her swimming (yes, it was that much a point of contention) but she had fun with my phone camera at the meets and caught these few.

Eli giving loves to a family friend of ours, one of his favorite playmates while we wait for Isaac and keila to finish swim practice. The next shot is our traditional treat at ll the swim meets!

I think this might be the kid favorite part of swim meets!