Summer, Day 36

Monday, Monday ...

I'm writing this Tuesday and trying to remember my Monday. The boys had swim and dive practice in the morning. Ben was upset during his swim time because his goggles didn't work the way he wanted -- his old pair broke last week -- so later in the day we went to the swim shop and bought him two new pairs (thinking at he'll be happy with at least one of them). I bought Michael a new pair as well.

The boys swam in a meet later Monday. Michael dove OK, then struggled a little during the meet. For some reason, he didn't swim a freestyle this meet, but instead competed in two backstrokes (one in a relay) and, for the first time, the breaststroke. We didn't expect much from the breast -- his time wasn't great, but the best part was the Joker-smile he appeared to be flashing every time his head came out of the water -- but thought he would do great in the backstroke after last week. He started both out strong, then lost focus. I was volunteering as a timekeeper, and during the 25 back, I told the other timekeeper in our lane that Michael could win this after seeing him swim the first 10 yards. Then, Michael slowed down and finished about five seconds slower than last week. As a parent, I want to figure out why he doesn't perform as well as he normally does in anything. I want to say I believe "as a parent," but is it just me because I used to analyze why I didn't do as well. Michael gave us some reasons: He was bored; he was tired; he's trying but just can't. Maybe he's just a typical kid who will experience his ups and downs. We want him to at least try, and thinking he's not is tough for me, especially when I compare him with Ben, who's not as athletic or wiry but tries so hard.

Ben's hard work is starting to pay off. After his morning meltdown, he swam phenomenal times (for him), knocking three seconds off his freestyle personal record and a whopping 10 seconds off his backstroke PR. He actually stopped once or twice in his freestyle, leading me to think he'd not break his best, but making me realize afterward is that he's just getting faster. And in the backstroke, he swam into the lane line and still won his heat. No, he didn't win the whole event, but against the five other kids in the pool with him at that time, he came in first.

Maybe it was the goggles.

Ahead to Day 37.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer, Day 8

Today was Memorial Day, and as far as Memorial Days go, this one seemed somewhat anticlimactic. The sun came out after three less-than-stellar days, perhaps preventing the weekend from being a total bust. I worked late last night but was awake earlier than I wanted to be this morning. I fell back asleep and woke up around 10:30 to a thumping sound outside. Michael, Lori and my father-in-law got the rest of the sand in the base of the new basketball hoop, and Michael and his friend from across the street were shooting around. This was Lori's parents' last day in Utah, so we treated them to The Cheesecake Factory at the new City Creek mall downtown. I had the macaroni and cheese burger and most of a piece of Oreo cheesecake (no matter how much I pushed on my sons -- they wanted to share Lori's banana cream cheesecake). The boys and I wandered City Creek a little and came home. The afternoon wasn't much more eventful. Michael and I took Popcorn to the park for about
Read more

Vacation finale

Image
As expected, the last three days of vacation were much less eventful than the first 12. This happens every year -- we get back from Wisconsin for at least one day before leaving for Utah, and it's just wind-down time. And that's OK -- going nonstop for two weeks isn't easy, especially with kids. And vacation is supposed to be a time to relax, and for the past three days, that's what we did. The past few days weren't that relaxing, however. Monday, we met my mom, who is in Chicago this week, for lunch and then to Old Orchard Mall. That night, we met some friends at the new Superdawg (my favorite Chicago hot dog restaurant) in Wheeling. Tuesday, after pondering going downtown, we ended up just seeing the Smurfs movie with my dad. Last night, we went to dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant here in Edgebrook. Wednesday was mostly devoted to getting ready for our return trip Thursday morning. The heat and thunderstorms finally subsided -- this might have been the m
Read more

The Little Red Machine

Image
After blogging about Eldest's baseball experience (as well as mine as an assistant coach), I decided to write about my five years playing organized baseball as a kid. Long ago (the mid-1990s), I wrote about two of these seasons, so I will dig those up and transcribe/edit/add/revise when I post on those two seasons. This post will be about my first season, in 1978 on the Reds. We had moved into our new house in 1977, and my new friends, especially Marc, loved baseball and collected baseball cards. Even before we had moved that spring, I was started to become interested in baseball, so my interest exploded that summer. I had played basketball for two seasons at Norwood Park, so my father signed me up for t-ball in the spring of 1978 and bought me a glove (mass-autographed by Mickey Rivers!). I was placed on the Reds. The team was coached by a couple teenagers, including the older brother of one of my teammates. I don't remember many of my other teammates, except we had a bi
Read more