It's Official, We Have Ourselves a Swimmer

Olivia learned to swim last summer. Would I say she was a strong swimmer? By no means. I trusted her to swim without a life jacket on her own in a pool, where adults were present. I would never let her swim alone, or off in the middle of a lake. She could keep her head above water, but was lacking in technique. She was off to a great start, but we felt she could use some additional training. The community pool was having swim lessons on Monday evenings. Olivia joined the group late into their session, but she was getting some extra practice and she seemed to enjoy it. Andy was at the pool most nights, so he was always the one that stayed with her. Chasing Mia around the pool, while Olivia swam was not my idea of a good time, so I hadn't seen how much she was improving. Andy would come home with comments on how good she was doing, and I did believe him, but didn't grasp just how good.

Then one night he came home and said she was going to swim the 25 yd backstroke in the Stingrays swim meet that Saturday. I was a bit surprised. Mind you, the last time I saw her backstroke, she would turn and crash into the sidewalls. I was excited for her and ready to cheer her on no matter how well or poorly she swam.

I sat there at the start of her meet, anxiously awaiting. Various scenes played through my head. Would she enter the water at the right time, start too early, have a real slow start, get disqualified for some silly mistake? Boy, did she ever amaze me! She took off so quickly in the water. Within no time she was multiple body lengths ahead of the other girls in her heat. She swam straight as an arrow like she's been doing this forever. I screamed from the sidelines and snapped numerous photos. After her heat there was even a reminder about no flash photography at the start of each race. I'm sure that was directed at me. It was my little girl's first race, so oops, I got a little too over zealous with the photos. Sue me.

Here is a photo of her time. The photo was taken before the other girls finished so their times aren't accurate. She swam the same event later and beat her time by about one second. We're so proud. Looks like Stingrays are in her future next year, that is as long as she still wants to do it.