Just getting back after amonth vacation. Love all the swimming stuff, brings back fond memories. Bribery works. kids love winning their ribbons, lollipops or whatever for heat winning, but always found that beating their times made them feel better. Kept stats of meets, events and times all the way through college, so daughter could SEE her progress in print. We used (as mentioned ad nauseum) 'two PBs' equal your choice for dinner, after meet (Mom was tired, Dad was tired so had to eat anyway). Always a thrill for her 'to be in charge'. Not sure who brought up, but we found that for whatever reason, the swim kids (and polo kids) were the best in classroom, and had fewer 'incidents' than other sports teams in HS (and college it turns out). Not certain if universal, but our experiences. My best experience - when doing stroke and turn, had daughter do her backstroke flip, and give me a grin on her way off the wall. Worst experience - calling a good swimmer foul, and having her dad complain - that I was calling too close- and then explaining the goal was not to DQ, but to correct their mistakes for later meets. "But my kid is year round swimmer - great, I'm a year round S&T judge".....Anyway, do miss it all, even the tough parts. Simply enjoy, it goes too quickly.
