It's Official!

Jack accomplished his long time goal. Today, at the LC, he completed a ONE MILE swim. Amazing! Honestly, I think he could've gone another mile. Not bad for an eleven year old, eh?
For the first time in days and days, it didn't rain. Sam may actually have football practice tomorrow after school. It's been a nice break this week not having practice. Only 2 more weeks, and we'll be done with football. Sam will be so sad. I will miss the games, but not the three practices a week.
DaddyP and I are planning a Dallas trip in a few weeks to do some Christmas shopping sans kiddos. Also looking VERY forward to a fun evening with friends there, and a possible trip in a TIME MACHINE! Oh yes! VERY exciting times! :-)
Ready for Friday, and looking forward to date night on Friday night and a football game Saturday morning!

Playing Catch Up and Giving Birth

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately, but things have been cuhrazee around here. The swim meet yesterday was h.o.t.h.o.t.h.o.t.h.o.t. The temp was 102, but I think the index was at 108. It was just so hot. The boys both did great and both will probably ribbon. Jack moved up in the standings from the previous week, but we won't know officially until Monday night at practice. They did post a few results before the meet was over, and we know that Jack moved up from 11th place in his division for freestyle to #4 for his entire age group!! He also competed in his first 100m IM, and he did exceptionally well in his heat. We aren't sure of his final standing, but we're thinking his heat time was fast enough to allow him to hold onto the Top 3 for that event. Sam actually (surprisingly!!) placed in the breast stroke at his previous meet, and we saw on the results board before we left this meet that he was 8th in his division. That means he'll get a ribbon at tomorrow night's practice. I'm pretty sure that Jack will ribbon in all of his events from Saturday, but we'll see.
We celebrated birthday #11 for Jack today. It's hard to believe that at this time 11 years ago, he was less than an hour old....being born very late after such a long and disastrous day of laboring. We spent the afternoon swimming and having cake with friends/family, and he had a wonderful time. The adults who weren't in the pool were pretty miserable, but the kids had a good time. DaddyP took Jack out for the evening to have some Man to Man Time, so I'm watching Joan Crawford in a 1939 film called The Women. I'm enjoying this movie immensely. I love old movies, and wow. This is about as old as you're gonna get. Those hats! Oh, why don't women wear hats like that anymore? Off to watch..

Videos from Lil Flip

We're on Day 3 of swim lessons. I took the Flip today, so here are a couple of short shots. Sam is trying to get out of Red Cross level 5, I believe. In this clip, he was having to survival float for 30 seconds, I think. Survival floating is really hard for a kid because they have to fight the urge to tread water. They simply have to be limp and relaxed in the water while only raising their head to get air. Sam had to fight hard not to move. Sophy is also in 5-ish (haha.) Here she is working on her front crawl/freestyle. She had completed one pass prior to this, but she did the entire thing in one breath, so they made her go back and do it over. In case you're wondering, these are the Red Cross requirements for Level 5. (Having said that, I think I'm a Level 1.5.) I can't say enough about making sure your child's swim lessons are the of the Red Cross variety. They really stress water safety and make sure that your child is prepared to hit the water in every circumstance possible.

If swimming were easy, it'd be football.

Most of the swimmers write some form of a message on their body. Some say, EAT MY BUBBLES. Some say, I EAT CHLORINE FOR BREAKFAST. I thought long and hard before I came up with Sam's message for today.

He fell on his way to the ready bench (and again later off of the starting block) and a lady stopped me and said, "You're the miracle kid's mom, right? Well, he just fell down, but I think he's okay because he kept going." That's our Sammy. He just gets up and keeps on going. Sam worked his hardest and did a great job for a first year swimmer. He placed last in each event, but it's all about the exposure at this point, right? He had a blast and didn't injure himself too badly when he fell off of the starting blocks before the 25m freestyle heat; however, it did embarrass him a little to have to stop the meet. He continued on and gave it 110%. He's such a cool kid! He had no idea he placed last each time and even thought he placed third once. Haha. I was so busy getting him from Point A to Point B that I didn't think to video him! Then again, my camera battery might not have lasted that long. AHHAA!
Jack did awesome today! He came in 1st or 2nd in all of his heats and placed in the Top 10 of all the events in his age division. Last year his times improved about 3-4 seconds over the course of the swim season. If the same thing happens this year, he'll be in the Top 3 EASILY. We're just happy that he loves what he is doing! I'm attempting to upload some videos. During the breast stroke, Jack's goggles got dislodged. He continued on and finished second in his heat despite the wardrobe malfunction. There was a time that would've reduced him to tears! My, my, we've come a long way! We had to leave Jack at the meet to ride home with another family (thanks Potts family) due to the meet running long and DaddyP being late for an evening wedding. We left the Flip with them, and Mrs. Potts recorded the moment for us! We're looking forward to a super year! If you get a message saying the video is unavailable, just check back later.

The Weekend

Backing up a little bit...Jack's swim clinic on Thursday night went great! He worked for 2.5 hours in the pool getting evaluated and learning some new drills and ways to tweak what he is doing. PDaddy said he worked so hard! There is no way I could've completed a fraction of what he did. I am so happy that he has found something that he can excel at and that he LOVES doing so much. It's something he'll be able to do for the rest of his life to stay in shape as well. Our pediatrician really encouraged him to keep at it the last time we saw her. She said that she sees so many young kids with sports related injuries, so she really emphasized the low-impact nature of swimming and was all for it.
In other Jack news, we did get an appointment for Monday with the pediatric opthamologist that we were on the waiting list to see. Jack has his 4th sty for this month right now, so I'm really hoping to get some answers. Someone suggested to us that it was a sign of diabetes, which I had never heard before. I'm hoping they were misinformed, although we've had a diabetes scare with Jack before...and diabetes runs in our family. We'll have answers soon, hopefully.
I had dinner out with a friend last night while the kids had a sleepover with the Meem and Pop. PDaddy had family pictures and wanted to stay home and get some editing done, so it worked out pretty good.
This morning we had a birthday party bright and early. We made it home in time to grab a little something for lunch and to find out that Sam has a fever. YAY! And it's not even a holiday! Makes me want to put the Christmas tree up or something. I'm sitting in front of the fire as I type while Sophy plans out her hairstyle for tonight's Father/Daughter Ball. She wants "lots and lots of curls." Which is easier said than done with hair as thick as her's is. PDaddy just left to pick up her wrist corsage. I think that is the only reason she wants to go; she gets to wear a flower corsage.
Tomorrow we're grilling burgers for PDaddy's stepdad's bday, and Sam will have lessons somewhere in there, I hope.
I'm off to make some hot tea and read by the fire until I'm called into hair and fingernail painting duty later on!