7:21 pmFacing
Jachin’s first swim meet was this morning. Early this morning. Warm-ups began at 7:30, to be exact. And if you don’t consider 7:30 to be insanely early in the morning, then I’m sorry, but we can’t be friends. And did you know that it’s now completely dark at 7am? Umm, where did summer go? But when it is still dark outside, and it’s a Saturday, and the air is frigid and cold when you pull yourself out of your covers, how many people really want to get out of bed? Not my family, let me make that clear. And I was not well received by anyone in my family when I stood in the freezing, dark kitchen, banging stuff around and packing apples and graham crackers and water bottles, yelling for them to get up and have breakfast quick like bunnies. Jon moaned, “Sleep, woman!” from under the covers as I did all of the necessary things required to look like I had taken a shower, and counted down the minutes until we were supposed to leave. Oh, and this morning I learned that Jachin doesn’t feel it is necessary to brush his teeth before a morning swim meet. Because he feels no one will be looking at his teeth under water, and plus he sometimes swallows the pool water and the chlorine in the water will surely kill many bad-breath-causing germs. And perhaps he has a point, but because I am a wretched mother I made him brush them anyway.
A couple days ago, he came to me worried about this impending meet.
“Do we have to go?” he asked me.
“Yes, you’re all signed up. Do you not want to go?”
“Could we just not go and pretend that I forgot?”
And this began my deep inquiry into what the heck was the matter and why in the world my son’s nerves were all shot. And then it finally came out. He was almost sickly nervous about diving off the dive blocks. He belly-flops almost every time, and loses his goggles approximately a third of the time.
“What if I belly-flop and everyone sees me?”
And here I assure him that lots of kids are also beginners as far as the blocks go, and with enough practice he’ll get it. And then I tell him that if he flops it’s not a big deal… the thing is just to shake it off and get swimming.
And after I drug him out of bed and into the freezing cold of the morning (it was flurrying here, folks), we sat in the pool balcony waiting for his first race. (Because although the meet started at 8:15, his events were spaced fabulously so that we waited until 10am for his first race and 11:30 for his second. That was awesome. My arse is still numb from the aluminum bench seating.) And as we sat and sat and waited and waited, his poor little nerves became more and more frazzled as he thought about the blocks. He asked if we could leave. Again being a wretched mother, I said no. I said that once he got his first meet over with, it would be a breeze and he would like it. Of course I had no real proof of this. It was completely possible that once he got his first meet over with he would hate it and want to quit. But wretched mothers lie and encourage and don’t take their nervous kids home. Jon and Zoe walked (well, Jon walked, and carried Zoe piggyback… because occasionally when it is 40 degrees outside, Zoe likes to leave the house and go places with no shoes) across the street to McDonald’s and got some hash browns and orange juice to bring back to make the other swimmers jealous. And that distracted Jachin a little and made him smile and bought us some time. (And wow, did Zoe’s bare feet get dirty today.)
Finally 10:00 rolled around. His first race was the 50 backstroke, which doesn’t require diving from the blocks. And my friends, he rocked it. He finished 2nd in his heat and 4th overall. And with that under his belt, he suddenly wasn’t quite so nervous anymore. A little nervous, yes, but he no longer had visions of being humiliated in front of hundreds of people. He realized that he can hold his own in a pool full of kids. And he loosened up a little.
And then when the big moment came — the 50 freestyle –Jon went down on the deck with him and gave him an awesome daddy pep talk (I don’t know exactly what was said, but it worked). And Jachin climbed up on the blocks and adjusted his goggles and leaned over and — I can only assume — sent up a prayer to heaven.
And here it was. He’s in the second lane from the wall.
Oh yeah, there was a little flop, but the boy did just what he should have: he shook it off and got swimming. And he finished 2nd in the heat. And did you see the turn? Dude, he even did a righteous turn!
And as we got in the car, talking about everything, telling him that we were proud, he finally said, “Yeah, I did pretty good, huh?” And so far, he hasn’t asked me to skip out on the next meet. (Although, depending on how early it is and how cold it is outside, I might actually be okay with that.)
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That is sweet - swimming - that kind of swimming is hard. And, yeah 7:30 a.m. is early - we still have more than a year until 9:00 church and don’t think it’s not the back of mind constantly - we get 2 days to “sleep in” and in a little more than a year that second day will be swiped away from us!
Comment by Shahara — October 13, 2008 @ 7:06 am
What a good mom and great cheerleader. Just remind him that he could be the next Michael Phelps! Sure wish we could’ve been there to see him compete! Our hats go off to him!
Comment by Joan — October 13, 2008 @ 11:24 am
GO JACHIN!! He did awesome.
Comment by Kim — October 14, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
He did so great! Yay for Jachin!
Comment by Leslie` — November 4, 2008 @ 8:25 pm