i lost 10 pounds last night. i sweated it off in a puddle at a swim meet. four hours in direct sunlight can do that for you.
swim meets are insane. they last for hours. while your child maybe competes in four races, those four races could each be spaced 1.25 hours apart. let's say you have two kids. you do the math.
yesterday i was a timer. i stood at the end of a lane (lane 6 if you must know) and timed each child coming my way for hours on end. people, lane 6 is a slow lane. and many times there is no swimmer in it depending on the particular race. since it's an even number lane, it was our competitor's lane and i found myself rooting for them if only so they didn't place dead last in every single race.
some of the children will stop mid-lane, look around to see how the competition is doing, wave to their parents, and then they may or may not continue the appropriate stroke to the end. we are yelling, swim! go! you can make it! don't stop!
it is -- exhausting. yelling. in the sun. for people who cannot hear you underwater.
there are three timers per lane. everything goes really fast. well, except in lane 6.
when we had no swimmer, i would beat it over to where my kids were sitting with their groups waiting to be called. they write on them with permanent marker -- their number, their races, their heat, their lane. they look like a tattoo experiment gone really bad.
my older son, who is always surrounded by kids, has taken to saying "peace out yo" after everything he says. so basically i am playing straight man to his little comedy routine. excuse me, holmes? how did this happen? you don't think i know what peace out yo means? i play along, which means i basically ignore it, and his friends think it is hilarious.
here is a sample conversation:
him: "yo, mom, those pudding cups are awesome!"
me: "oh, you had one already? did you find the spoons?"
him: "there are spoons?"
me: "um, yes, how did you eat it?"
him: "with my mouth. (cue in friends laughter.) (cue in mom looking bewildered.) peace out yo."
okay. hilarious. my children are eating like dogs while i am sweating my buns off in lane 6. i rush back to my spot where i am working with a nice lady and man who forgive me for missing the starting horn, and also for thinking that last week since i was listed as "backup" on the timer schedule that i had the night off.
evidently, "backup" means you are there the whole time, starting your timer with each race just in case another timer misses the horn. because you must have three timers per lane.
sports just confuse me. there is not one single sport that i truly understand. even in baseball where it seems to be pretty straightforward, there are weirdo rules that i am still hearing about six years into little league. and it never fails that some poor person will ask me what just happened. and i always say, i have no idea. i just show up when they tell me to.
so in swimming there are four strokes. freestyle means normal swimming, on your stomach kicking your legs and moving your arms. that is misleading. because to me, freestyle implies that you are free to do whichever style you want.
then there's backstroke. the same, only on your back. i get that one. it's just hard to go straight.
breaststroke. your arms scoop up out and around. your legs do something that looks froglike and, i just learned this last night, they can under no circumstance show themselves above water during this stroke. HIDE YOUR LEGS. if there is a kick -- boom, you're disqualified. you get the purple ribbon. no one wants the purple.
and of course, the dreaded butterfly. anyone with any sense on this earth hates this stroke. it makes no sense for the human body to try and copy a dolphin. they are aerodynamic. we are not. it makes my back ache just watching the kids do it. everyone gets dq'ed (swim team lingo, people) doing this stroke at one time or another. we would like to know who invented this stroke. what drug were they on.
i had a smackdown with two 7-year-old's last week over the butterfly. there are relay medley's with four boys and each one does a different stroke. well the boy who did the butterfly got disqualified. so the whole medley team got purple ribbons. back under the tent, the boys were talking smack about the kid who did not touch the wall with two hands. yes, that's right, because the butterfly is not complicated enough, they throw in stuff like oh, you have to touch the wall with two hands simultaneously.
well, combine that with all the weird looking stuff the rest of your body is supposed to be doing (feet together, no kicking, just moving up and down like a whale tail) and your arms -- i don't even know where to begin in describing what your arms are supposed to do -- and it is a lot for a little kid to remember.
the kid who messed up the stroke had tears welling up in his eyes, listening to the other boys talk. and they wouldn't drop it. so i turn with my mommy glare and say, "okay guys, that is enough." they keep on. i step it up a notch. "do you know that you are on the same team? do you really just want to throw your teammate under a bus for messing up the hardest stroke? that is terrible sportsmanship."
they still do not drop it. i pull out my big guns. "where are your mothers? and are YOU doing butterfly tonight? because i cannot WAIT until you get disqualified so you will know how it feels." all the other parents in the tent, mainly asian, are very quiet. they see now that i am a crazy honky. two dads come over later and are very friendly. clearly, they are scared.
so later, the rudest of the two boys comes walking into the tent with a purple ribbon. he got dq'ed for butterfly. he announces that he got dq'ed for butterfly. i say, "oh really. not much fun is it." no, he shakes his head.
but the story has a happy ending. the boy who first messed it up and lost the relay race for his team got chosen "shark of the week." the other kids had to eat his bubbles.
peace out yo.
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