Sometimes my kids teach me the biggest life lessons. Example... Chase and Gavin are on the swim team this year. It's Chase's 2nd year and Gavin's 1st. Wednesday was their first 'swim meet' (it wasn't a meet against another team, we swam against ourselves but ran it just like a meet to get times). Gavin has to swim in 2 events, freestyle and the backstroke. My mom has been an excellent swim teacher to my boys and she started teaching Gavin the backstroke last summer. Needless to say, it's been a year since last summer so he has forgotten quite a bit. During the swim practices Gavin would hang on the lane lines a lot. I kept telling him he couldn't hang onto the lane lines for the meet so he needed to practice that, but he still did it. The days leading up to the meet Gavin kept telling me that he couldn't do the backstroke. Well, meet day came and Gavin was 1st up for the freestyle. He swims in the 6 and under age category and he is one of the youngest. I told him right before he dove in that he couldn't touch the lane lines or they would disqualify him (so I lied a little). The buzzer rang and Gavin dove in and swam his little heart out. His stroke was awesome and he didn't touch the lane lines once! He took 2nd out of 7 kids. About 45 minutes later it was time for his backstroke. He kept telling me he couldn't do it but I told him to do his best. I stayed in the bleachers with Wade and Ezra while Spencer took Gavin to line up by the pool. I was nervous for him. He got in the water to start his race, the buzzer rang and he was off! Or so we thought. He started doing the stroke and then stopped and almost started to swim back to the starting line where Spencer was. Spencer motioned to him to keep going so he did! He was trying so hard but he was struggling quite a bit. I could see he was panicking and then it hit me that he probably remembered that I said if he touches the lane line he would be disqualified. So I quickly called Spencer on his cell phone and told him to tell Gavin he could rest on the lane line if he needed to. From then on Gavin would do some stokes and then take a break and rest on the lane line. Spencer was walking along the side of the pool cheering him on and I was cheering him on from the stands. It took him awhile to get to the finish line but when he did the whole crowd cheered for him. It was a good thing I had my sunglasses on because the tears were welling up in my eyes, not because I was disappointed or embarrassed but because I was so proud of him. He swam this race that was so scary to him and no matter how long it took, he didn't give up.
I also need to mention how proud I am of Chase. He has to swim in 4 events, freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. Have you ever tried to swim the butterfly stroke? I have and I could only do about 3 strokes before I gave up. Chase swam the whole length of the pool doing the butterfly and didn't stop once. Chase is also the youngest in his age group, and he did very well.
*On a side note, we will be hitting up the local YMCA with my mom to work on Gavin's backstroke. :)
5 comments:
Oh, that story brought tears to my eyes too! Good for him for hanging in there! :) Your boys are so cute!
What a cute story. I bet he was really proud of himself for not giving up.
That's so much fun! I've been thinking of putting Aubrey in swim when she's old enough. That's so awesome that Chase can do the butterfly...they put me in that event one time and I was disqualified! It's hard! What a stud!
Okay, now you're making me cry jerk. :) That's awesome that he kept going even though he was losing the race. Never give up is the lesson learned!
I was getting teared up too! It's hard to watch your kids struggle through something knowing you can't really help them. Way to go, Gavin!
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