Last week was exceptionally busy, filled with all sorts of physical activity: swim team practice, cross country practice, track and field camp, and two swim meets. We are all worn out. No lazy summer days for us! Our daily breakdown for June 24-28th:
- 7:30-8:30am: Swim team practice for Jay and Rose, cross country summer practice for Jeff and/or Shaina, bike riding practice for Amber
- 10am-12pm Kids track and field camp for all five of us.
- 5:45pm-9pm Tuesday and Thursday: Swim meets for Jay and Rose.
We barely had time to catch our breath all week! When I wrote down our activities, they didn't look as tiring as they were in real time. But we are a family who prefers to take life slowly and minimize kids' commitments, so swim team plus track camp plus swim meets felt super busy for us! The longest days had Jay and Rose outside at events for nearly seven hours total! They handled it quite well. We made sure to have long relatively quiet afternoons with movies and computers to recover from the rigors of the day and rest up for the next activity.
I was most worried about Rose doing so much and staying up late at swim meets. She gets so unreasonable when she's over tired, but she was energized by all of the human contact! Our little extrovert. The day after the first swim meet, I was braced for an emotional hurricane, but Rose was cheerful and chipper as can be--she feeds off of crowds, chaos, and PEOPLE. I cannot relate to that in any way. I hid from at least half a dozen friends and acquaintances at the swim meet because I was feeling overwhelmed by the crowd and expected socialization. The morning after the first swim meet of the week, Jay and I were both still completely drained. Rose bounded out of bed cheerfully as can be. I was flabbergasted, but glad.
SWIMMING
Tuesday was Rose's first-ever swim meet. Her tenacity and confidence astound me. Three weeks before her first swim meet, Rose could only doggy paddle, and at the swim meet she swam backstroke and freestyle, and even swam faster than some of the other kids! AND she didn't get disqualified by the stroke judge. And she did the cutest flop-splash-dive off of the block for her freestyle race! It was all very impressive to say the least. Jeff and I tag teamed it with swim meet attendance. I went to the Tuesday meet and Jeff went to the Thursday meet. With track camp every morning, we couldn't risk Amber staying up late at a swim meet, so one of us stayed home with her on those nights while the other parent went to the meet.
I attended the swim meet in Prosser, which has a nice grassy area inside the fence by the pool where families can sit and watch the meet. Our pool in Sunnyside does not have space for families to go inside the fence and watch the races. It was my first time actually being able to SEE my kids swim up close, and I loved it! Jay did so well swimming breast stroke, backstroke, and freestyle, and even won two of his heats! It was fun. Last year at the Prosser meet, Jeff persuaded nervous novice-swimmer Jay to swim the freestyle race by promising him a Dairy Queen blizzard afterwards. The kids decided that this was a set-in-stone tradition, so after the meet we stopped for late night ice cream on the way home.
At the second meet of the week, Jay beat at least two kids in the fast heat of breast stroke. Rose got third place in the girls age 8 and under backstroke and Jay beat at least 4 kids in his backstroke race. Jeff kept texting me as the events unfolded. Rose got third place in the freestyle too. She also got the sportsmanship award for cheering on her teammates all evening. These kids!
Waiting for their team warm-up at the Prosser swim meet.
Ready to warm up.
Swim meets are all about the snacks. I packed Jay and Rose each a bag of snacks which they slowly worked their way through during the long 3.5 hour night. Swim meets are LONG, and we left early!
I was feeling a tad crazy sitting in the grass with the sun on the side of my head. I forgot to bring a chair, so I was crunched over on the ground. My arms left awkwardly bright patches of skin cells on my black pants, haha.
Once the sun sinks, the air gets chilly!
Swim meet vibes. Rose is about to get in the pool for backstroke down there. The Prosser pool is ideal for a beginner because it's only 25 meters long (Sunnyside's pool is 50 meters), and the youngest age group (Rose's, 8 and under) only has to swim 25 meters in Prosser. The older kids all have to swim down and back (50 meters).
Backstroke Rose! She only went crooked like twice!
Our neighbor sent us this picture from the Thursday meet in Sunnyside. He was a timer so he had a front row seat to see the swimmers. Jeff was outside the fence watching.
Rose proudly displaying her sportsmanship award (medal) from the Sunnyside meet on Thursday night. She loves awards, but it's funny because she doesn't cherish the actual award once she receives it. She lost her medal already. Same story with school certificates and other award ribbons. They vanish. Rose likes the moment of pride and honor when she is handed the award, not the award itself. Unless the award is ice cream. Or hot chocolate.
It got unseasonably chilly at the end of the week, so after the Thursday swim meet, Jeff made the kids hot chocolate.
TRACK CAMP
Our friend Christy Borders put together a week long track camp for kids, and the response was amazing: SEVENTY kids came. 70. Christy is phenomenal. She asked several high school runners and coaches to help out at the camp, so Jeff and I headed up the distance running portion of track camp (and by we, I mean Jeff headed it up while I assisted him). The kids were divided into age groups and they rotated between five track and field events throughout the week. It was simple and fun and exhausting! Jay, Rose, and Amber got to attend the camp while we were coaching at it--built-in childcare? Yes, please! The only down side to the arrangement is that we did not get to see our kids do much of the other events because we were too busy coaching our event. But it was so fun to see kids work and run!
Jeff ran a great youth distance program at the track camp. He had younger kids play games like zombie tag and duck duck goose to get their distance running in, and he taught the older kids the difference between a sustainable easy jogging pace and an all-out sprint. The kids loved him as usual and it was fun to see him in his element. I did my background thing, helping explain things and doing crowd control. On the first day of camp, I abandoned Jeff when I noticed that one of our neighbor-kids who has down's syndrome seemed to need a helper. She didn't want to go with strangers, and she knows that I am Rose's mom because we got to church together and she came over to our house for Rose's birthday party. When I asked her if she'd like to come with me, she surprised me and hardly let go of my hand the entire first day. After that she was more tired and less interested in coming with me, so I let her babysitter take over again and I returned to assist Jeff. After growing up around the corner from dear Mike Hillam, I always deeply feel the honor of having a child with down's syndrome trust me.
My personal rankings of track camp events:
- Cutest event at track camp: kid-sized baby hurdles.
- Scariest event at track camp: shot put, even though they only used softballs.
- Most impressive event at track camp: the distance races. The track is huge to little kids' legs, but they WENT for it anyways.
- The other two events at track camp were also good, but I didn't get to see much of them while I was off in the soccer fields playing tag with the distance kids: sprinting and long jump.
At the end of each day of track camp, each group had a mini competition in their event of the day. Jay ran a 9:36 mile in the noonday heat on Monday. Rose ran a 9:05 mile in the cooler temperatures that rolled in on Thursday. Right before she ran her mile, Rose decided to run the 800 with some of her group. Tenacity, thy name is Rosie. Amber ran a 400 for her distance race but got distracted partway through and went off to play for a little while before coming back onto the track and finishing her lap.
Amber wore sunglasses just like me one day. She also buried her third place ribbon in the sand of the long jump pit and was distraught about losing it as we were leaving. Jeff went and miraculously was able to unearth it.
It RAINED on us one day. We never get rain in June. The kids fled and track camp ended ten minutes early.
Rose was so excited about track camp and looked forward to trying the hurdles so much that she set up her own hurdles in the front yard to practice up.
Christy sent me this cute blurry picture of Amber doing the darling baby hurdles. Seriously. Those hurdles. Amber loves jumping over things.
I helped the 4 year olds run their 400 meter distance race. It was tragic at the end because we only had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons to award, so 4 kids didn't get a ribbon and one of them sobbed and cried. I don't believe in giving every kid an award, but it still felt sad for the sweet little 4 year old to have run all that way with no reward! The same thing happened in the five year old group. The parents approved of our system, but some of the kids were very shocked and sad that their efforts weren't being rewarded. Some of the other events did give ribbons to every kid because they only had three lanes worth of hurdles, so three kids per race all got ribbons. Jeff and I joked that true to form, distance running was the hardest workout and made the most kids cry!
80 minutes of distance running with seven four year olds was a riot, if you can imagine.
At the end of every day, we put our hands in the middle and shouted TRACK CAMP! It was excellent and silly and the kids liked it.
Rose's best cousin-buddy Layne came to track camp too. They were happy to both win second place ribbons in their different age groups one day.
Friday was quite intense: we had four extra kids with us! I babysat my friend Liz's kids while she had surgery, and they came to track camp with us. Jeff ran to the track so that we could have enough seat belts in our van. I love a van full of kids--it's what they were made for! It felt like such valuable cargo to drive around all of those kids.
Group warm-up drills and games at the beginning of each day of track camp.
It finally warmed up enough again on the last day for the kids to enjoy popsicles.
Group picture
On Friday after it was all over, Jeff and I slipped out to go on a peaceful golden date-walk along the canal together. We walked and talked and it felt so good to be alone together for an entire half hour after our hectic week.
Sunshine, true love, and fragrant mint fields.
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