17 | June | 2022 | days in my life

We are in the thick of swim season here. One of the things about swim is that you are required to “volunteer” 8 points per family, where each point is a little over an hour of volunteer time. Alternatively, you can pay out the points for around $300. Last year, we paid out most of it because with Saoirse still 1, we needed the time more than the money and since meets were “virtual” (gag) they didn’t really need as many volunteers anyway. However, in addition to the cost, I definitely felt guilty about not pitching in and helping things run. Without volunteers, there would be no swim season. This year, we hope to get all our points.

My first volunteer session was Tuesday, and wow, it was a doozie. This was the first swim meet our club had held since 2019, so it had been a while. I volunteered as a stager. That is, along with one other woman, it was my job to get the kids lined up for their races. I did this for 2, maybe 2.5 hours. It was truly unbelievable. For the entirety of the two hours, I was yelling (to be heard) at kids, trying to get their names, figure out where they should go, ordering teens and tiny tots around, frantically trying to remember which kids I had lined up for which event where, trying to get socializing hangers-on to get lost. It. Was. Crazy. Needless to say, the system could use some work, but I had the second half of the meet, and there wasn’t time to even think about a new system. (I sent the coaches a list of suggestions afterwards – no response.) The woman I worked with had a heart rate alarm on her watch that went off if her heart rate got too high, intended for exercise, and it kept going off because the experience was so intense.

I’ll be volunteering as a timer next time.

Before my volunteer shift started, I was actually getting a little teary seeing my kids finally get to have a swim meet after a two year Covid hiatus. It makes me so angry when I think how much they lost for basically no reason. There’s nothing different about last summer versus this summer in terms of Covid risk. If anything, last summer was actually much better (since swim season is May through mid July – it was over before Delta really hit and adults were freshly vaccinated). I was also just really happy to see the kids having fun – participating in races, screaming for their friends, hanging out and socializing on the bleachers, etc. But once the “staging” started there was no more time for dreamy emotion – just adrenaline.

Some sun would have been nice:

Both girls are doing great this year. I was super proud of Bri for managing to finish a 25 yard butterfly without looking like she was going to drown. She didn’t look like Michael Phelps, or even L either, but no DQ. Her breaststroke is getting better, too; about halfway through, she remembered to glide:

Isla’s favorite strokes are butterfly and breaststroke. Here, they only have the 9-10 year olds swim a 25 butterfly.

Every week they have an A and a B meet. Slower swimmers go to the B meet. Normally, we choose the B meet, but L had a conflict this week, so B went to the B meet and L to the A meet. Yes, two swim meets in one week. Frankly, I am exhausted because of this. However, the B meet did give me a chance to visit Mercer Is.land Beach Club, which I’d never seen before. Basically it’s “where the other half swim.” Nice spot!