Christian's First-Ever Swim Meet

We are so incredibly proud of Christian (16) for participating in his first-ever swim meet with Templeton High School today! In fact, this is the first time he's ever been in any kind of sport.

He swam in the:

50 meter freestyle, and

50 meter backstroke

One thing to work on: '

When doing freestyle, Christian only took ONE breath per lap. Whaaaaat??? How is that possible???

It has been a long few weeks (months to get to this point). I had been verbally told that for a student to get out of P.E. for 10th grade, they need to participate in two school sports between their freshman and sophomore year. So we enrolled both Christian and Scarlett in private swimming lessons starting in August so that 1) Christian could gear up for swim team in February and Scarlett could become a better, stronger swimmer.

The 9th grade P.E. coach is a bear and Christian was all gung-ho about swim team. He was doing great with lessons and his instructor said he was ready!

As February approached, Christian's anxiety kicked into full gear and he wasn't wanting to do swim team anymore and said we were pressuring him. We reminded him the whole reason for 5+ months of swimming lessons was to get him ready for swim team.

AND THEN ... we found out the requirements for skipping P.E. and not been explained to me accurately. So no matter what we did at this point, Christian would need to take P.E. next year in 10th grade.

But we moved forward with swim team.

It has been hard on Christian. Going from once a week lessons (shared with Scarlett) for half an hour versus practiced four days a week for 1.25+ hours day. He gets out of lessons and is like a zombie. He doesn't say anything ... and just stares at the ceiling of the car as we drive home.

He's been pretty grumpy and just plain unhappy. And each week, he'd say, "I'll give my decision next week about whether or not I'll stay on the swim team."

Unbeknownst to Christian, Jonathan and I were not going to let him quit. No way!

Thursday night was their first "pasta feed" carbo-loading event and a teammates house. I had been told the kids feel the pasta feeds are the best part of the swim team! Christian was reluctant, but he went! I had messaged the hosting mom ahead of time to explain a little about who Christian is and if she'd just keep an eye on him and quietly encourage him if he decides to be a wallflower.

I am happy to share that Christian had a good time (as you can see in the last picture posted here), and sat amongst the other boys. He's the only freshman boy on the team, so everybody else is older and was on the team last year.

So he conquered his fear of the pasta feed.

He conquered his fear of riding in the school van to the event.

He conquered his fear of the swim meet.

Our Christian is CONQUERING FEARS!! OH. MY. GOODNESS.