Clean Fun!

Well, yesterday marked the end of swim team season. The boys will continue to swim throughout the year but the swim team meets are only in the summer. Biel and G-man are on the swim team...even at that G-man is the youngest and smallest on his team. Generally you can't be on the swim team until you are 9 but they made an exception for him last year allowing him on the team at 7.
Seichi and S-dog took swimming lessons all year as well and throughout this summer. Seichi is DYING to be on the swim team too with his older brothers and experiencing quite a bit of frustration in having to wait so long :)
The older boys were so nervous for their first meet. Biel spewed off a whole litany of worries to me that morning at breakfast...."what if I do horribly and my team gets upset with me?", "what if my goggles fall off when I dive in?", "what if I swallow a whole bunch of water and can't finish my heat?", "what if, what if, what if...."
I tried my best to dispel the myths and put his mind at ease but I realized since I was never competitive in swimming I really don't know exactly what advice to give. I thought that perhaps redirecting them to handsome hubby might do the trick. So I said "I can understand that your nervous, that is normal for your first meet especially...why don't you go talk to Daddy about all your "what ifs" and see if he has some advice. Daddy swam competitively for years and I bet he has some great advice for you." Well I wasn't wrong. Daddy's response? "Boys just swim your hardest and stretch out those arms and let everything else happen if they happen. Just do your best, don't worry about anything else." Somehow that advice worked and the boys were able to calm down quite a bit.

Enough to get 2 first place, 2 second place and 1 third place in their heats. It was so fun to watch them "try their best". Here is a little video of Biel taking first in 50M back stroke.

After the meet the boys were so overjoyed and on top of the world excited with their ribbons and their overall experience. And the best part? They come home exhausted and CLEAN! Gotta love that!