First swim meet.

Lily has been a member of the Flying Fish for exactly a month this week. At Wednesday's practice they announced that Friday's practice was cancelled and that there would be a "friendly meet" instead. Lily came running to me begging to attend. Silly goose of course you can attend.

It started at 6.30 but the weather closed the pool so things didn't get underway until 7 something. The head coach spoke first saying: this is a friendly meet, all kids will get ribbons, and candy and cupcakes and as a reward for their hard work he had made arrangements for them all to jump off of the high boards when they were done. Sounded fabulous. He explained that some kids we nervous and asked that we remained silent until the kids entered the water and then we could clap and cheer them on.

The tiny kiddies went first. How sweet they were. Just 25 metres for them which is still a long way. Some of the kids in all the classes are disabled and the cheers for them were fantastic. They often stopped and looked around and when they realised they were the only ones still swimming they looked so defeated so the coaches would yell, "come on parents help bring him/her home" and we would all clap and the kids would keep going. Really really neat to watch.

Finally Lily and her group were pool side and then were told to get into the water. Then "GO" and off she flew. She gave it her all. Lily is so competitive, so wretchedly competitive. A little girl from her class at school is on this team and has been so for 18 months. Lily was not going to let her win. She made up her mind and did it. She did really well in all 4 categories but didn't finish first in her group so she was sad. I talked to her and then the Coach came over and said, "Based on your performance this evening Lily, we are moving you into the advanced class, as of now".

The whole idea was to get them their times so that they had personal goals to beat from here on out. She did really well all things considered. She got 2nd she swam fast. In all fairness to her and this is my fault, she was tired. Richie Rich has been with us and our schedule got all out of whack, She has been going to bed late all week so she would start off strong but fade quickly. Endurance is something that she needs to build and as much as she is a high energy kid she certainly wasn't at her peak last night. But SHE ROCKED IT.

Backstroke. Lily is on the left.

She did really well in this as it was her first race.

heading home
I think this was breaststroke
She finally understood that she did well and that she didn't have to finish first!Lily is the first on the list. She swam with the first group of 4.