So you might know this little dude...
He's my first born perfect child. Yes perfect (I don't care what anyone else says/thinks, he's perfect to me). I signed him up to do a Splash and Dash today. Think Triathlon minus the bike. This was a swim, run event. His BFF Owen, Owen's brother Alec and his dad Rich were all doing it and I thought it was a great opportunity for Nicholas too.
I'll admit, Nicholas really didn't want to do it, but he agreed that he would. I told George that he agreed because it makes me happy. I can hear him saying, "I really don't want to do the Splash and Dash, but I'll do it because it makes my mom happy."
And he's right. It does make me happy to see him do something like this. You want to know why? The reason is because everything comes so easily to Nicholas. He's bright, and he's a good athlete and he doesn't have to work very hard to be either one (perfect I tell you). Swimming, however, does NOT come easily to Nicholas. It's something he has to try really hard to be good at and he's just average. That's COMPLETELY ok with me. I don't want him to be an awesome swimmer. I just want him to challenge himself and gain confidence by doing something that scares him or that he's not great at.
I could tell he was very nervous as he waited in line to start his swim. If you don't know him, you may not have known it, but I could look at him and see the nerves were there. He had to swim 100 meters for this event and that's a pretty far way. I let him know if he got tired to rest on the walls. I also let him know I knew he could do it and that I was going to be proud of him no matter what the outcome. I just wanted him to have fun!
It was his turn to enter the water and I was so surprised when he decided to dive in (literally). I thought he'd slink into the water and push off, but he didn't.
He got in the dive position and waited for his signal to go.
And he dove right in. Not a bad dive either. It wasn't a belly flop.
He was off swimming and I got tears in my eyes. I know it seems silly, but that is my baby in there doing something I know is hard for him.
As with everything, he gave it his all.
I could tell right toward the middle he was getting tired. They were told in the beginning they could grab the swim boards from the lifeguards and hang on to them if they needed to anytime during the race.
Nicholas grabbed on once and held on for about 5 seconds and then kept going. I knew he was tired and I screamed and yelled for him to keep giving it his all. He probably never even heard me or if he did he was probably rolling his eyes and saying "shut up mom" in his head.
But, he made it and before I knew it he was off to transition. I had a specific plan for him to throw on his shoes (sans socks) and a race belt. I don't know how long he was in there (the official timing results haven't been posted yet), but he was out pretty quickly.
He was sprinting when he came out and I yelled at him to to go, go, go. I guessed he'd give it all he had for as long as he could and then settle into a slower pace.
The race went out far beyond where I could see, and it seemed like he was gone forever (just my own feeling, he really wasn't). I guess I was just anxious. Sure enough in no time he almost completed his 1K run and was headed back toward the finish.
As I saw Nicholas coming toward the finish line, I was screaming run, run, run as fast as you can.
He came in giving me this look of, "why are you screaming at me you crazy lady?"
He finished strong and fast despite his crazy mom's screams.
He crossed the finish line of his 100M swim and 1K run in 10:55 seconds. This earned him the 17th finishing spot in his age group (out of 32).
To say I'm proud of my angel is an understatement. I'm proud because he did HIS PERSONAL best. He didn't try to beat everyone else. He didn't even really seem to care. His expectation was to have fun and he said he did that (except for the swim).
There'a another similar race coming up in August and I asked him if he wanted to do it. He said, "NO", but I have a feeling he'll do it, just to make his mama happy. Perfect I tell ya. Perfect!
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