Swim Team for Eli

Eli decided that he wanted to join a summer swim team this year.  I tried to convince Elina and Evie to do the same since it's easier to do an activity if all of them participate, but they didn't take the bait.  Elina said she doesn't like swimming to race and Evie was a little tired of swimming after taking swim lessons all year long.

Practices are Mondays through Friday from 8:30-9:15am.  It sounds early, but honestly, the kids are up by then 90% of the time.  There have been a few sad days where I have to wake the kids in the morning.  Almost every morning Eli will say, "Why does swim team have to be so early?"  Then when we get to the pool, he is just so excited to be in the water and I can't get him to leave the pool after practice!

Luckily, the pool has a beach entry area, so Eulee is free to go in and out of the water.  I still have to follow her closely because she is definitely my brave one.  She just wants to copy the big kids so badly that she's oblivious to the dangers.  She'll "superman" right into the pool whether or not someone is standing there to catch her.  She just goes for it!  It's definitely taking years off of my life.

Eli has been doing really well with swim team.  He stopped taking lessons before he started kindergarten, so I wasn't sure how he would really do.  I mean, I don't have to worry about him drowning in a pool, but I didn't know how his strokes would be anymore.  It turns out that he's pretty good for his age.  When swim team started, he was practicing with the 6 year old and unders.  But after a week, the coaches asked me to switch him so that he could practice with the 7 and 8 year olds.  Whoa!  For the full 45 minutes, they are just swimming lap after lap.  I don't know how they do it!  These days Eli is definitely wiped out by bedtime and he's been eating a tremendous amount of food.  It's been crazy!  He's ALWAYS hungry!

We've had 2 swim meets so far.  At the first meet he swam freestyle 25 yards for 6 and unders and backstroke 25 yards for 7 and 8s.   The swim cap was so tight and squished his forehead down, that he doesn't even look like our Eli, right?  After wearing it for the first meet, he decided he didn't want to wear it for the second meet.

They give out ribbons for 1st-6th place in each event.  Eli actually got 2nd place out of 21 kids for freestyle and he got 6th place out of 16 kids for backstroke.  I was so impressed!

Here he is swimming freestyle.
Then for the second meet, he swam 6 and unders for all his events: freestyle (25 yds), backstroke (25 yds), and freestyle relay (100yds).

We went against a pretty fast team this time and he got 2 ribbons again!  He got 1st for backstroke and 3rd for the relay!  The thing is, I saw his backstroke heat and I know he didn't get 1st, but backstroke is really easy to get disqualified in especially for Eli's age group.  When you reach the wall at the end, you HAVE to touch the wall with your hand while you are still on your back.  Little kids have a tendency to turn around to see if they are at the wall, and if they are there, they just touch the wall while facing the wall...which is a DQ!  It's sad to DQ kids that young really.  So I was proud of him for swimming a clean, fast race.  It's tough to do at their age!

Here he is doing his backstroke. He's in the lane closest to the near wall. I kept yelling "Kick, kick, kick!" because he has a tendency to forget about his feet...and then he slows down incredibly because he's only depending on his arms!
 
And here he is swimming freestyle at that race too.
So that's what Eli's been busy with this month.  It only goes for 1 more week, so the season is ending soon.  We're just amazed with how much he's improved so far.  I'm glad he found something that could possibly be "his thing."  Yay, Eli!