Ari has yet to catch the swimming bug or Olympic dream, I had many of those. I would watch just about every sport in the Olympics and think how cool it would be to be good enough at it to compete in the Olympics, ok, well maybe not every sport, like curling or the trampoline (but I did have a trampoline and it probably would have been my best shot at any of the sports, but whatever, this isn’t really about me). No, Ari thinks she is good enough that she doesn’t need swimming lessons. She has thought this for the last three years, telling me every time I sign her up for lessons that she is already good enough. Ari holds her own in a pool, but she is definitely no Janet Evans. She needs swimming lessons!
Well, this year we tried something different. The local swim team has a summer program that isn’t quite as competitive, but they still get to compete in meets and a swim-a-thon so I signed her on up, hoping it wouldn’t get the same argument of “I already know how to swim, mom!” No such luck, when I got home after her first day I enthusiastically asked “How was your first day?” “It’s just like regular swimming lessons,” she replied in a very dejected tone. So I’m thinking, so much for trying to make her swimming lessons fun. Well, when she got the sign-up this week to gather sponsors for her swim-a-thon next week she started to get excited. She called Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie Brandee and Auntie TT to see if they would sponsor her. When her Achievement Day leader asked what she was doing for the summer she enthusiastically said she was in SummerDarts and she was swimming in a swim-a-thon so her leader offered to sponsor her at $.25 a lap also. She likes this whole getting people to sponsor her thing. She has lofty goals, she wants to swim 100 laps, but since she’s never really swum laps before I’m thinking about a quarter goal of that might be more realistic, but who knows. I told her to go for it! Now maybe she’s catching the swimming bug and maybe the Beijing Olympics will help to foster some excitement too, who knows. We’ll just have to wait and see.
But for now, swim Ari swim, and I’ll be there next week to cheer you on!
1 comment:
Grandpa is cheering with me that Ari achieves her hundred lap goal (even though our pocketbook will be thinner should she make that goal). Good thing I didn't offer a dollar a lap until I asked her how many laps she thought she could do. When she said a hundred I scaled back a bit. You go Ari, keep up the enthusiasum, we would love to see you achieve your goal.
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