As life gets back to normal, there is a lot to be grateful for. Today, I'm feeling grateful for swim team. Cumberland is open this year, and when the health orders were lifted June 2nd, the need for advance reservations was lifted too. And just like that, it feels like the old days around here. Summer as advertised.
And with Cumberland comes summer swim team. We are one week into the season and we have a couple of tired kiddos around here. This is more physical activity than they've had in months and months, and it is so great. I love taking them to practice in the morning, then sitting poolside and chatting with the other moms while we watch them swim. We have a huge team this year. It's like everyone has been cooped up for a year and is so happy to have a THING TO DO. The kids are adorable and seem so happy to be together. It's wonderful to see these kiddos again, who we've known since preschool or infancy. They have grown so much during this time we haven't seen them. I love them somewhat irrationally, these children of our village.
Today was our first meet of the Tigersharks swim team-- hitting the ground running! The meets are the biggest difference this year- due to Covid each team swims the meet separately at their own pools and submit their times for each event after the fact. It's a little strange, and I miss the festive atmosphere and slight chaos and extra level of competition of regular meets. But there are some silver linings, too. The commute, for starters-- how nice to not be schlepping out to Eastlake at 8:30am. And no baking in the sun on a pool deck for 4 hours. And, if we had no entries in a certain event, we could just skip it. So the meet was done, start to finish, in under 2 hours.
I thoroughly enjoyed those two hours, too. I mean, it was a little hot and steamy in there on the pool deck, and wearing a mask was not great. But it was so fun to watch the team work together, coaches and volunteers getting the kids where they needed to be, teammates cheering each other on. Jack and Ivy did a great job, with strong swims across the board. They both swam the medley relay and anchored the 200 free relay in their respective age groups, and Ivy rocked her 50 backstroke. Jack swam his 100 free in 1:10 after only 4 days of practice, and coming off a year of sloth. He was nearly a pool length ahead of his teammates and while I am all about ALL of our Tigersharks being winners, there's something gratifying about watching your kid just dominate in a race. Our kiddos were independent and off with their friends and teammates for most of the time, but came and sought us out after each of their races to get feedback and high fives and it was so cute. I had a lot of favorite moments but one of them was after Jack's 100 breastroke (1:25) when Jack looked around, then saw me up in the balcony and flashed this subtle, joyful little smile in my direction. I also loved when he went over to Ivy while she waited with her relay team, to say hi and encourge her. This little pat on the shoulder --worth the price of admission.
What really got me today was watching the under-8's swim. Little cuties, swimming their one length of the pool, with their sweet coaches swimming along side in the outside lanes. As soon as the first little approached the end of the lane, the cheering started. Everyone on the pool deck-- kids and parents-- clapping and whooping. And they kept going til the last swimmer straggled in. And there was just so much palapable love for those little kiddos, so much of our community being together. And the awareness that it feels like only moments since we had a little one swimming 25's. The stark and fleeting way that the years pass, and all the joy they've had wrapped up in them. Tears in my eyes just from watching a swim race. You know you're a mom when...
