Ted's 1st Swim Meet

Tonight was the rescheduled 1st pre-team swim meet of the summer. Each child did one length of each stroke (free, breast, back, fly). Freestyle used to be, in my humble, non-swimmer opinion, Ted's weakest stroke; his arms were sloppy. But they must have worked on it this week because he did great! 54:06 (they were timed and the time written on their ribbon. Each child received a ribbon after every stroke. Really sweet.)
Breaststroke used to be his best stroke, since they did it with Judy. Ted was pretty slow at this one and seemed to have some sort of weird arm movement going on. 1:14:42. The couch said he was a die-hard butterfly, just look at those arms! Too bad he wasn't doing the butterfly at the time! hee.
Backstroke was awesome. Here's another stroke he does fast and efficiently. 47:03. His comment after that one was "This is a lot of work." hee.
And finally his favorite, the butterfly. At 1:08:96 (96?) it wasn't speedy, but it sure looked good. Their drills this morning at practice were mostly butterfly and it showed.
Great job, Ted and the Rock Creek Flyers! You rock!! They were clearly the youngest team. There were 3rd graders (Jordon and Jacob among them) and BIG kids in general on the other teams, who were faster and more skilled. I hope to keep Ted in pre-team as long as possible (because it's so mellow) so I can why these big kids are there. It did make our team look so very sweet! Some good pics on moeltini.

All this following a day at Lakeside with Alex and Adam. Last year Ted and Sam had a blast and Mae screamed the entire time, only consenting to go on one little horsey ride, with Sam. This year she started out the same, screaming that the roller coaster was too loud. Wendy and I thought it was going to be a long afternoon, but she got through it and actually went on quite a lot of rides, and enjoyed it! Hooray! We predict she'll take, oh, 3 more years, and then she'll try the roller coaster. Hee. Wendy took this shot and when I look at it I see what I've been doing for the past month with Mae. I may not feel like nurturing and comforting her all the time, but I really am trying. It's like the theory that if you smile, you'll eventually feel happy. If I hold and comfort her when she needs it, even if I don't feel like it, maybe soon I'll be able to do it without feeling annoyed. I am happy she ended up having a happy day today. Lakeside is very cute for little ones. I think Alex and Ted are getting a bit too old for it, but they still like it now. Today Alex and Sam seemed to pair up, while Ted and Adam palled around. They have similar personalities so it made sense. All in all, an exhausting but fun day.
The boys leave for Iowa tomorrow morning. Sweet dreams!