Little One at ten is an absolute joy. She is experimenting with Who she is -- and "who" is capitalized for a reason. One day she establishes that she is a true tom-boy. She daringly rides her trail bike down the sledding hill and back up again, hooping and hollering. The next day she is drawing Anime' -style girls with one-shouldered tops and mini-skirts. She will pick up snakes at a moment's notice yet screams across the room from a spider.
As I drive her to school in the mornings, she tells me her favorite subjects. They vary from day to day. I hate social studies. Social studies is my favorite subject. The PE teacher is so mean. Tomorrow's the PE teacher's birthday; will you make her a cake? Living with a tweenager is a lot like living with a schizophrenic. (I think.)
Her enthusiasm for swimming has grown gradually over the months since she began. She has begun practicing even on the days that she has piano and other commitments, going from 2 days a week to 4. She rarely complains anymore -- in fact, rarely mentions it at all, which I have taken as a good sign.
The final meet of the short-course season was this weekend. It's like a regional meet and the teams all vie for the most points as a team. It's the culmination of a long, hard season. The meet was held in a beautiful facility where the pool is 50 meters long; they have a motorized catwalk that can be moved to divide the pool into 2 separate bodies of water.
Her times yesterday were not her best times; she is still afraid to flip-turn and that tends to slow her down. I made a huge mistake in writing her events on her arm yesterday, and wrote "50 fly" for her 100-yard butterfly. After 2 laps, she stopped, and the judges leaned down and said, "It's a 100!" So off she went for 2 more laps, but by that time, she had already fallen way behind. Nana would be the one crying up in the stands. Not often a child's failure is clearly your own fault. In writing. She generously laughed and hugged me when she returned to the stands. I ruminated for hours.
Today was a better day. Her times all improved. She was DQ'ed on her 100-back due to a faulty flip turn (that's why she is afraid to do 'em, folks! They're hard!) but her times overall were outstanding. On her 50-fly, she had had no recorded time on the books, and today, just missed her B time by a half-second. Came in first in her heat.
Emotionally, it was rougher sailing. Her stomach hurt. She asked, "Do I have to swim next year?" Twice, up in the line area behind the blocks, she cried and asked me to come hold her.
Knowing how her opinion of social studies (and language and math) have gone up and down in hours' time, I chose to stay neutral on whether she swims next year. "We'll see..." I replied. Inside, I was thinking, "Please change your mind...please change your mind..." The teammates and swim parents championed her butterfly so well that she seemed to take some of the praise to heart, and began to hold her head up again. Maybe by tomorrow, she will truly love swimming. We can only hope..
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