Swim Meet

This last weekend, we attended the kidlet's swim meet at a local venue.

Yes, I used the word 'venue'. Because it's an Olympic-regulation sized pool at a local high school. This place is amazing with 8-50 meter lanes, state of the art air circulation system, and the water uses 'cutting edge' technology for sanitation.

It doesn't seem to be chlorine because the kidlet didn't smell like she'd been in a swimming pool all morning! It's really, really nice. . . though it still has bleachers in the balcony for the parents to sit on.

Alas, it's not the pool she normally swims in. :-(

Which meant we went to the local Academy to buy some sproingy stadium chairs with backs.

It made all the difference. In between heats, the hubs worked on his computer and I crocheted. Usually when I crochet, my hands will start to sweat because the humidity is so high, but not at Jenks.

Anyhoo, last year was the first time the kidlet swam competitively and Jenks was her first short course meet.

What is short course?

Good question. In fact it was one that I asked when we went to our first meet. Short course season starts in September and ends with Age Group finals/Sectionals during the first of March. Then water polo season starts, March-April. Then long course May-July. August is usually Long course Age Group finals and Sectionals.

Short course is 25 meter or 25 yard pools. Times will be higher because there are more turns involved.

For example: the kidlet raced her first 500 Freestyle race. She psyched herself out about it. Trying to tell her that she routinely swims that in practice didn't matter. She was freaking . . . and it took place right after the 200 Free relay. In the 500 Free, you have to swim 20 laps, which means 19 flip turns. I can imagine the counting must be tough. Luckily, her teammates helped out. At the non-starting block part of the pool. they had a plastic placard that they put in the water to let the swimmer know how many laps they did (1,3,5,etc) When the red square is up, then it's a 25 yard race to the finish!

For her first 500 ever, she had a very respectable time of 7.20.37 minutes, and ended up 15th out of 20.

This year, they had the boys compete on one end of the pool and the girls on the other end. Thank goodness! Because we would have been there all day! Every day the boys finished about 1-2 HOURS before the girls did. Yes, there were that many girls.

Many of the events had around 21-23 heats with 8 girls per heat. Do the math.

That's a lot of kids!

Even with separating out the 10 & Unders, there were still up to 73-78 11/12 year olds.

Last year, the goal was to establish times in the events. This year the goal is to shave time off her previous times. Here were her events:
Saturday:
500 Free--first time to ever swim this.
100 Free--remained the same--paced with kid next to her instead of pushing past.
100 Back-not timed previously. Only 2 seconds off 'B' time goal.
200 Medley (IM)--took 5 seconds off time
Sunday:
100 Fly-- took 9 seconds off previous time
50 Free--took 1.5 seconds off previous time which put her at "B" time. Now goal is to get "A" times.
100 Breast--took 13 seconds off previous time
200 Free--took 23 seconds off previous time

The kidlet didn't win any ribbons, but she shaved seconds off her every time she'd been seeded in. In many events she was barely out of 'B' standard times by only one or two seconds, BUT she did make "B" time for her 50 Free. That was an exciting heat since most of the girls were neck-and-neck the entire race!

I don't know when she'll have another meet. We have to look at the schedule to see what works for us.

I'll post about it when it's relevant!

Later, Peeps!

I have a Cussin' Kid

Yeah, this isn't something I'm proud of to say the least. It started off with a word every now and then, but last week it escalated.

Her cuss words of choice are 'Oh my God', which taking God's name in vain is a cardinal sin, and 'damn', which she uses to describe an object. When I explained that using damn as an adjective is inappropriate, she asked what an adjective was.

*sigh* When do they teach proper grammar nowadays?

So, hubster and I are nipping this in the bud. When she uses a cuss word, she loses TV for the rest of the day. If it is late in the day when she cusses, she loses TV privileges for the next day. This includes Nintendo DS, Wii, and the computer, anything electronic. She lost TV for Saturday AND Sunday. And no, we aren't punishing ourselves, we make the child go to her room if we want to watch something.

I also told her not to hang around any kids who cuss, because then it will be harder to break the habit. I know hubster and I do use cuss words. Hubster is worse than I am, and we will have to catch ourselves before we say the bad words. So this is good practice for us, too.

Anyway, one good thing HAS come out of her punishment--she's started reading again. Over the last two days, she finished Judy Moody and started a Junie B she got for Christmas. So I'm pretty happy with that outcome.

Write on!

Addendum: Child fessed up that a friend at school is the bad influence. Hate to say it, but I suspected this child was the problem.