An Important Life Lesson. . . Achieved
If you told a typical 9-year-old that she would have to wait a year to see hard work pay off, it’s likely she wouldn’t believe you. It’s likely that the end date is too far away for her to see any value in the hard work right now. As an educator, you study a lot about intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic. You read about creating small, measurable goals, and about creating rewards that are given in a timely fashion. They can’t be too far out or else the student may lose focus and motivation. But that isn’t what I saw over the past year.
Big I had a rough summer last year. After swimming her first winter season and then having to move up to the 9 & 10 age group (flip turns, double the length of events, etc.), she spent the summer swimming exhibition and near the bottom of every single invitational results list. Monday’s were the worst. After the weekend’s invitationals, she watched her friends and teammates go home with trophies, medals and ribbons and she always went home empty-handed. It would have been easy for her to get discouraged and quit the sport entirely. But she didn’t.
Thanks to the guidance of some of our friends with several older swimmers in their family, they told us to get her focused on her times. So we did. I started a notebook and kept track of every meet time. If she came in last, we would rejoice that she had knocked two seconds off her time. I didn’t know if it would work, but it did. She got extremely focused on her times and she knocked time off in every single meet. She started a journal with goals she created for herself and she started being able to cross them off when she met them. It was sometimes still hard on Monday mornings, but we just kept reminding her that it was about her own swimming, her own times.
This winter, she continued to improve and she had a great fall/winter season. We did a minimal amount of meets, allowing her to focus more on endurance training and her stroke development. She didn’t say it, but I swear she went to every practice and worked hard so that she could show up at summer swimming and show how much she had improved. It was a big part of her motivation. She turned 10 in the spring and moved to the top of her age group.
On Wednesday night she had her first dual meet. There are a ton of kids on her swim team and we fully expected her to swim exhibition events again. After being on vacation and only attending one practice before the coach put the line-up together, she wasn’t hopeful. Her coach had only seen her swim in one, hour long practice. But when practice was over, she was all smiles. She was swimming two relays and an individual event. . . for points. That was a first.
She was a nervous wreck because she wanted to do so well. . . and she did. Her medley relay, where she swam freestyle, got 1st place by a mile and she extended the lead when she dove in. In her individual 50 butterfly, she came in 3rd and she didn’t miss second (or even first) by that much. In the free relay, she started the team off, swam a great 50, touching either first or just a fingertip behind first. Her relay placed 2nd by just a touch. And she achieved her best times ever.
Last night, we went to her first invitational meet of the season. Her seed times were from last year. This was her very first time swimming in a long-course meet. In the 50 free, she blew her seed time away and took it from last year’s 59 to a 38.02. She earned a third place trophy (her first swimming trophy ever) and also won her heat. In backstroke, she touched the wall second in her heat and blew her seed time away again, earning another 3rd place trophy. In breaststroke, she won her heat and a 4th place medal; but get this, she was disappointed because she knew she hadn’t achieved her best time. “I can do better than that,” she said. Finally, in the 50 fly, she won her heat easily and took another 3rd place trophy. In three of her four strokes, she achieved her best times ever. She started out the winter with “C” times and her goal was to make it to “BB.” Now, with the exception of one event last night, she easily achieved “BB” times and is knocking on the door of several “A” times.
She waited a whole year to take home a trophy, yet her breaststroke time continued to bother her on the ride home last night; and she is hell bent on fixing it at her next meet.
Last year, I rejoiced when she swam a legal race and didn’t get disqualified. I hugged her and squeezed her when she dropped a second off her times and happily pointed out that she hadn’t come in dead last when the results were posted each meet. Sometimes we simply celebrated because she hadn’t been DQ’d. We celebrated the little things and I think it has really paid off. I didn’t hear bragging last night; I saw a big smile after each race, and I heard her congratulate other swimmers on their successes. It is good she started off swimming exhibition; it was beneficial (although sometimes especially painful for me) to see her name at the bottom of those results lists last year. She has an appreciation for her current success and she has definitely learned an important life lesson, that hard work truly does pay off.
The Big Rocks
We just got back from our annual trek to the Outer Banks. I am happy to report that there were no injuries or illnesses while there, a rarity in our family. It was one of the most relaxing and fun vacations I’ve had down there. We included a day trip to Ocracoke island, checked out the new and improved pier in Nags Head, and spent a lot of good quality time at the beach. I spent my week trying to stay cool and reading a lot of good books. One in particular really spoke to me.
This may come as a shock to those of you who view me as eternally 29, but when I turned 30, I did some major housekeeping, so to speak, with my life. I stopped putting time and energy into relationships that were one-sided and unhealthy for me; and it did a world of good for me. Suddenly I had tons of time to do the things I liked to do and to spend time with the people who really mattered. Over the last couple years however, I’ve made some decisions that clouded up my life and welcomed drama back in. I read this book called “Sam’s Letters to Jennifer” by James Patterson, while on vacation, and it really reinforced some of the decisions I had already made prior to leaving for vacation.
The book is about a woman’s relationship with her ailing grandmother, “Sam.” After losing my own Grammom in April of 2010, I wasn’t sure I could handle reading it. My Mom had finished it in a few days and told me I just had to read it. The relationship Jennifer had with her grandmother, and the things that the grandmother went through in this book, reminded me so much of me and my grandmother. There was one part in the book in particular that really hit home for me.
Jennifer spent summers with her grandmother at her lake house. At the end of the summer she was always sad to leave. Her grandmother told her to take a little of the lake home with her each year and would then help her load a Hellman’s mayo jar with rocks and pebbles, sand and water. Jennifer learned that you had to put the big rocks in first because the little pebbles and the sand would fill in around the big rocks, and sneak into the creaks and crevices that were made. The big rocks were the most important. Sam explained to her granddaughter that the big rocks represent the important things in life: family and friends that mean a lot to you. They should always be put first.
At one point, while reading the book, I actually burst into tears on the beach. Sam had died and Jennifer was speaking at her funeral. In some ways, I felt like James Patterson wrote that book just for me. I feel like my grandmother put it into the hands of my Mom because she knew she would put it in my hands and tell me I just had to read it. Even though she is gone, she continues to speak to me and guide me.
Before we left for vacation, I did some housekeeping. The girls and I spent a week organizing toys and throwing things out. I did the same thing with commitments that were taking up too much of my time and causing me too much stress. They are gone, and I am feeling a thousand times better already. I am focused on what truly matters, on the friends who have my back and know I have theirs, and on my growing family. I have 15 weeks before our new baby makes his appearance and I couldn’t have planned a better time to get rid of the stuff that was holding me down and back.
The Girl That Swallowed The Basketball
Everyone says that when you’re pregnant with your third or beyond, you pop a lot faster. I don’t know about that being true. They also say that if your abs are in good shape, your muscles hold that baby back closer to your spinal column longer. I entered this pregnancy the lightest I’ve been, compared to my other two pregnancies and probably in the best shape of any of the three too. It took a while for me to truly “show;” but now there’s no doubt.
I’m 22.5 weeks right now and Sassy reminds me daily that my belly is “HUGE!” She has no idea how ridiculously huge I’m going to get. I remember with each of the girls, being 36 weeks pregnant and thinking, “I can’t possibly get any bigger. . . ” and then I did.
Yesterday, Mr. BBM and I were at Lowe’s and decided to divide and conquer. As I was walking aisle to aisle, people kept looking at me funny. One couple stood there and was obviously talking about me as I walked by. I started doing a mental inventory. Was my nose running? My hair sticking up? Did I have something on my shirt? On my pants? Why were people looking at me?
I met up with Mr. BBM and asked him if I looked ok. “Yeah, why?” he asked.
“People are looking at me funny. I just feel like something isn’t right.”
Mr. BBM started to laugh and pointed at my stomach. “It’s probably because the only place you look pregnant is right there,” he said. “It’s comical. Most pregnant people don’t look like you.”
I looked down at my protruding stomach. It truly does look like I’ve swallowed a basketball. I still have the indentations at my waist. I can still feel my hip bones below the baby bump. Despite eating plenty, the only place I am carrying this baby is straight out front. Following the gestational diabetes diet from the start has made a big impact. To date, I have gained only 4 lbs. I am hoping that means this baby will be the smallest one yet with an easy deliver and that I’ll be able to get back in shape quickly. I am especially hoping that I am able to continue avoiding a gestational diabetic diagnosis. So far, so good. . .
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