Swim Practice

Our town does not have a pool. So, when Will wanted to join a swim team in elementary school, we looked to towns nearby.  That meant four nights a week, we were driving about half an hour to a town near us so Will could practice with his team.  Dave was traveling for work often in those days. Five practices were required each week and Dave took him to the Saturday practice each week so that I only needed to do the bare minimum during the week.  It was still a lot.  

There weren’t any families from our side of town going to the same practices so we couldn’t carpool…ugh. I had some thinking to do.

Here’s what I came up with:

I packed a big canvas bag with activities for Mikey. Some nights, we went in and watched practice and quietly did those activities.  An hour plus on those wooden bleachers was no treat, but it was fun to see Will learning and growing as a swimmer.

The coach asked that the spectators be quiet so that the team could focus.  As you can imagine, there were nights when Mikey couldn’t do quiet. On those nights, we ran around on the field outside the pool.

Other nights, we dropped Will off and went to a local grocery store. I always keep a cooler in the car so the perishables could stay cold until we could get them home.  Added benefit, we’d sometimes grab a (to-go) dinner from the grocery store and the kids could eat on the ride home. That was one thing off the checklist for the day.

I brought lego sets, coloring books, DIY kits that came in the mail once a month…if it existed, I brought it to those practices. 

What about rainy or snowy nights? When all else failed, we sat in the car. I read my book and Mikey watched a movie on his DVD player.  Not super enriching for Mikey, but at least we were first on line for pick-up to get the heck outa there. Not every day was perfect, but we managed perfectly fine.