I love you.
You are such an awesome kid.
I love that you will spend an afternoon designing and sewing a pillow pet for your sister.
I love that you have finished 10 chapter books this summer already.
I love that you are developing quite a snarky sense of humor. You raise your eyebrow like no other.
I love that you love to swim. You do 20 laps without realizing how hard it is to do twenty laps. You glide through the water like a Cullen glides through the forest, eerily arriving at your destination without effort or undue exertion.
You are amazing, my girl.
Amazing!
So, please keep all of these wonderful qualities close to your heart when I tell you that . . .
I do not love your swim meets.
They are torture my girl.
Torture.
They are 20 seconds of excitement followed by hours of sheer boredom, in 90 degree heat, with other stinky, sweaty and tired parents.
They are volunteering to corral 100 kids that are not mine and that can not understand why they can not be in the pool until their race.
They are listening to little Suzy's mom explain how little Suzy is swimming in the winter so that she can bump up her scholarship opportunities. Scholarship opportunities, mind you, that will not be available for at least another 7-8 years since little Suzy is 10 years old.
They are being available to be the mosquito buffet for the evening.
Swim meets suck, plain and simple.
So, christen me the summer time Grinch, but I can find no good quality in a swim meet.
No good quality except for the wide smile you give me when you finish your race.
For that, I'd endure anything.
With love,
Mom
PS To recap . . . Love you! . . . the swim meets? Not. so. much.
*****************Linking with Shell's PYO*****************************
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Oh, my! Yes, I could only imagine. My eldest daughter plays soccer and softball, so we don't have the problem of "hurry up and wait".
ReplyDeleteAnd... the scholarship thing... In my opinion, planning for the future is a good thing, but... there is a point when it can be taken a little too far.
Just dropping by from PYHO. Hope you have a great rest of the week!
~Dawna
http://hiccupsintime.com
LOL I can see myself thinking very similar thoughts with my boys' sports!
ReplyDeleteThis is EXACTLY how I feel about T-ball. I haven't put my kids in it yet (I guess only one is old enough) because...well, I'm selfish and they have other things to do. Besides have their lives taken over. In 100 degree heat. Every other day. We'll see about next year...
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way when my kids played soccer, ONE SEASON! It is so awful hot here in Texas and the teams sucked and they ran up and down the field for the entire game, never ever scoring a goal. It was painful for them and me.
ReplyDeleteMy parents...
ReplyDeletethey quit attending my gymnastics meets after awhile...
and
I still love them ten years later! It got boring for them and they could actually be making money during that time rather then spending it.
Don't worry - she won't mind that you don't like watching the swim meets! :)
I use to love swim meets when I was a kid! I loved hanging with my friends and chilling out all day in the sun. I never thought how my Dad felt. oops.
ReplyDeleteI HATE SWIM MEETS! My husband was a swim coach and it was the only way we would see him in the winter.
ReplyDeleteIts amazing what you will do for your kids :)
Oh I can't even imagine but I think that I will soon know this pain for Hayden LOVES swimming....
ReplyDeleteBeen there -- reasoning, perfection! Need that smile to rest forever in my heart. And, so do you and all the rest of us... that's why we do it. And, of course, we live for the day when they have their own little darlings needing them to show up for a swim meet... what goes round...
ReplyDeleteHA! I'm hoping my son chooses a sport that I really enjoy. Baseball or football - not so much!
ReplyDeleteThis made me giggle. I wasn't much of an athlete, but my brother ran track. He was a sprinter. It was wait. wait. wait. 11 seconds (ok a minute or so for the relays) wait. wait. wait.
ReplyDeleteI agree pretty much any sport played by the 5-10 year old set is painful. Add in the elements and the awful parents and yes it pretty much sucks. I try to make one friend who feels the same way I do (that it pretty much sucks and would much rather gossip than yell at our children and other people's children).
ReplyDeleteI will say my 11 year old daughter's tournament softball team is not so bad to watch (I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say enjoyable) but not bad.
My husband's parents never came to any of his meets, games, etc and he is like permanently scarred (for real, but he tends to be a little dramatic).
The most awful thing I had to sit through was gymnastics meets, luckily my oldest dropped everything, but the tumbling so I have been freed from that agony until my youngest is ready!
OMG! That's how I felt about my daughter's softball games this year. Her team was so horrible, and she was, well, not much better than that.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I wish you had been around fifteen years ago to explain this to my parents who made me be on the swim team one summer. Getting up at 6AM everyday and then dealing with everything you described was not my idea of fun!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Just awesome! Love the line about enduring anything to see her smile. As a parent seeing them smile makes it all worth it, so worth it.
ReplyDeleteHaha! What a great voice! Happy I stumbled onto your site and now have a new blog to read! (And now I know to encourage my 2 year old to join TEAM sports so we're not just waiting around for single matches/meets!!)
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought I was really really really missing out when my kids decided they didn't want to pursue swim team.
ReplyDeleteI think I would've made a good mosquito buffet.
But I'll have to settle for wistful dreaming...
(cheers to sacrifice. and smiles.)