No thanks to Daddy

So the boys are doing the swim team at our neighborhood pool. We had wanted them to do it last year but they were apprehensive so we let it go, with the understanding that it was a definite this time around. Jamie was again hesitant though. Last summer on the 4th of July we participated in the various family races they held and Jamie, swimming against 8-year-olds, fared poorly in his opinion in the father/son race (I was phenomenal of course). Jamie, as we know, does not like to do things he's not already very good at. I can understand it though, he's spent more than a year working up to a high level in baseball and I think the thought of being back at the bottom of the totem pole was off-putting. Even the fact that his particular friend from school, the one who is the reason he plays cello, is on the team wasn't enough. What finally got him, however, was when we mentioned that they could swim during the week after school when the pool is closed and at other times when nobody else could. He heard that and was basically sold.

So we had our first practices this week and both boys have done great. They will just be on the practice squad since we're going away for a month, but they get lots of individual instruction. Jamie was great and motored across the length of the pool in very creditable fashion. As he was watching the two other kids in his little group go, he became aware he would be expected to do a racing dive, which he's never done. He's never really dived before. Fearless as ever though, when his turn came he pitched himself headfirst towards the water, entering with arms, legs, elbows and knees going in about 7 different directions. It was really not pretty, but it worked, give him credit. For his part Connor has been unusually enthusiastic. He was the first one in the water yesterday and every time they ask who wants to go first he raises his and and says "Meeee!!!"

It rained over the weekend so the water has been very cold and yesterday was unusually overcast and cool, and windy so everybody was struggling a little. Connor was brave and made it through the practice but was distressed by the cold afterwards and clearly felt I wasn't doing enough about it, even though I changed him into dry clothes and wrapped him up in a cozy, big towel. On the way home he said he felt warmer, but not because of the clothes or the towel. "Not because of anything I've done then?" I confirmed. "Right," he said, "because of my bunny fur. I'm a bunny."