Today was Eden's final swim meet of the season. Okay, let me back up and talk about Eden and swimming for a minute:
The summer that Eden was three years old, she taught herself how to swim. She watched her friend Sam swimming on the 4th of July and decided that she could do that too! And boom, she did, and she was swimming around the pool like a little fish by the end of summer. That year we moved into our current house, and it has a pool. This makes me nervous, and I want to make sure that all of my kids are as strong of swimmers as possible, so the summer that Eden was four, I hired somebody to come out to our house and give Eden lessons. Even though she could swim, I wanted her to learn proper technique and to get stronger at it. She picked up everything SO FAST, and after just a few lessons, she could swim freestyle and backstroke. By the end of that summer, she was also swimming the breaststroke. Her swim teacher was like, "This girl is a natural! You should find a swim team for her!"
When Eden was in kindergarten, I started taking her to the swim clinics that this swim teacher puts on twice a month. It's a 45 minute clinic where Miss Jennifer watches the kids do freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke and helps them with their form. I always kept swim team in the back of my mind, but with James being so young, I wanted to wait until he was a little older before we joined one. I had heard that swim team can be intense... daily practices and lonnngggg (like 5 hours long) meets. But James is 2 now.
So this year was our year! Eden tried out for the team on May 1st, she made it, and practices started on May 2nd. Because of dance, we had to miss some practices in the beginning, and she had to miss the very first meet because it was the same day as her dance recital. But once dance and school ended, we were able to make practices every single day and attend all of the other meets.
Because we missed some practices in the beginning, Eden wasn't there the day that they learned how to do the butterfly. Y'all... I didn't even realize that the butterfly had been taught to the other kids and that she missed it! I found out two days before her first meet that she was going to have to swim butterfly that Saturday for the meet! I texted Miss Jennifer, and she sent me a YouTube video on the butterfly! The morning of the meet, I climbed into the backseat of the car with Eden, and we watched the video together. I said, "You got it?', and she goes, "Got it!" When it came time to do the butterfly, I had no idea what to expect! I told Dustin and my dad, "Well... this should be interesting!" And then the girl dove in, swam a beautiful butterfly, and won 1st place in her heat!
She had such a fun season! She won some ribbons here and there, AND she made it to the Meet of Champs... a meet for the top kids in each stroke! I was so, so proud of her for making it her very first year AND for making it as a 7 year old because she swims against 7s and 8s.
She didn't place at the meet this morning, but just seeing how much she's improved from the first meet to today was incredible! The thing about Eden is how pretty she looks swimming! She's not necessarily the fastest, but her form is perfect, and she just looks like a little fish when she's in the water!
I am so, so proud of her for trying something new, for joining a team where she knew NOBODY, for working hard at every practice...
But most importantly, she LOVED swim team, she's sad that it's over, and she's already looking forward to next year!
Besides swim team, we've been swimming in the pool, swimming in the pool, watching Disney movies, swimming in the pool, and watching Disney movies. :)
snapped this at one of Eden's practices last week!
Before I sign off... something that I found adorable...
Eden has been going over to Pops and Granny's house a couple of mornings a week and reading to them. On Tuesday night, I told Eden that she could go over to their house the next day to read. Ila asked, "Well, if she's going there, can I go be with Papa?" I called and asked him, and he said, "Sure!" That night, Ila took extra time before bed and picked out an outfit to wear the next day. On Wednesday morning, she wanted to take a shower, then she got dressed in the clothes she had picked the night before, she asked for a pony-tail and picked out a bow for me to put in. She said, "I want to look nice for Papa". If that's not precious, I don't know what is!
Another night, she picked out what she wanted to wear the next day, AND she picked out clothes for her baby doll to wear the next day and hung them out before climbing into bed.
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