Marvelous Pigs in Satin

Saturday was our first meet of the summer. The Kiddie Pies were great.

Blueberry Pie executed his first successful flip turn in competition and bettered his time in the 50 yard freestyle by 3 seconds.

In fact, each of them bettered at least 2 of their times.

Cherry Pie and Pumpkin Pie swam their 100 yard medley without getting disqualified. This is a pretty tough thing to do. They swim 25 yards of each stroke: Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and FreeStyle (crawl). There are turn and stroke judges watching and there are 100 ways to get disqualified, even if you don’t get confused and forget which stroke you are supposed to be doing. Blueberry Pie has to swim 200 yards for his medley and swam it successfully last week, but was disqualified Saturday because he paused to adjust his goggles at a turn. I consider wardrobe malfunctions to be my fault, so I’m wracked with guilt about it.

Butterfly is the hardest for all the kids. I was helping time the IM races. That dolphin kick that goes with the Butterfly is difficult. I saw lots of kids doing a frog kick or a flutter kick (which got them disqualified). Done right, the Butterfly is beautiful and also intimidating (those clips of Michael Phelps are like watching steam train hurtling towards you). The weird one, in my opinion is breast stroke. First off, it is tough to move forward for the swimmers. The race slowes down considerably on that leg every time. Plus it looks really silly. The whole pool suddenly looks like a huge whack-a-mole game, all the swimmers heads bobbing up and down. I looked it up , and the breast stroke does have a good reason to be used. It keeps your head above water for the most amount of time. So if you were swimming out to rescue someone, you would be able to keep them in sight the best by using the breast stroke. Also it is easier to breathe swimming this way.

Pumpkin Pie’s relay placed 2nd, she swims the first leg which is backstroke, and she came in 8th place in her 25m backstroke, earning points for the team. (8th place and up receive ribbons and earn points for the team.)

I do love swim team and let me count the ways;

1. Practice every day from 9-11 keeps us on a schedule all summer, but it’s an easy schedule.

2. All 4 of my swimmers practice at the same time and go to the same meets at the same place on the same day. No driving to 3 different towns for 3 different ball games.

3. Swimming is good exercise that the kiddie pies will be able to do their entire lives.

4. It is not during the school year.

5. The atmosphere is so positive. It’s all about beating your own best time or winning your heat and less about beating everyone. Any child who betters their time gets a best time patch for the race.

6. I can play at the park with the little kids or exercise during practice.

7. Swimming makes the kids hungry enough to eat the healthy food I cook.

8. Pumpkin Pie is actually good at it, and Tamalie Pie might turn out to be.

Tamalie Pie still looks like she might drown any second–she fights the water instead of swimming through it, but she is just beginning.