Little Swimmers

Yesterday the girls had a swim meet; the first ever away meet for Madeleine, and the first meet at which both girls had their matching team suits:

As this was only Madeleine's second meet ever, she was still a bit of a novice to the routine.  You may notice in the above picture that Julia's hand is covered in Black Sharpie text.  In order to help things run more smoothly, the swimmers are asked to have their event number and event names written on their hands. 

This caused some confusion for Madeleine.

MADELEINE: Mama?  I'm doing a 47.  So...how many laps is it to make 47?
ME: No, honey, you're swimming 25 yards, just like always.  One lap.  It's just that you're EVENT 47.
MADELEINE: Okay.  So...a 25?  And Mama?  How many laps do I swim for an 81?

Yeah.  She didn't get it.

Anyway, after the meet was over, both girls were full of babbling commentary during the ride home.  At one point, Madeleine grew impatient with Julia's ongoing chatter to me and insisted on interrupting to tell me something *really* important.

MADELEINE: Mama!  Julia, it's MY turn. Mama!
ME: Yes?
MADELEINE: (philosophically) I think I like being IN the water better than LOOKING at the water.  Yeah.  Because...I was thinking about that I think it just LOOKS better when you're IN the water than when you're just sitting and LOOKING at the pool.

That was a truly poignant statement.  I'm so glad she managed to get that word in edgewise over Julia.

Julia had enjoyed the meet thoroughly, despite one little snafu: during her Individual Medley, she was so focused on her upcoming 100yd freestyle that she went on auto-pilot and started off not with the butterfly, but with freestyle.  Luckily, she took it in stride, commenting with a laugh afterwards, "Well, at least I realized my mistake and changed to butterfly!"

I mentioned to Julia, later on, that had she done the reverse -- accidentally swam butterfly instead of freestyle -- it would probably not have resulted in a disqualification.  I explained to her that the term "freestyle" doesn't necessarily mean "front crawl," but rather means the swimmer's own choice of stroke.  Because front crawl is the fastest of all strokes, virtually every swimmer chooses that for freestyle. 

JULIA: Well, actually, front crawl might not be the fastest for everybody.  But, like, some people might be BETTER at a different stroke than front crawl so they might actually be able to swim, like, BACKSTROKE faster than they can swim front crawl. 
ME: Yeah, I guess so.  But in general, front crawl is a faster stroke.
JULIA: Well, besides, Lilly Mintz is faster at butterfly than at front crawl.

Oh. Well, in that case.  If one of the members of Julia's imaginary family can do butterfly faster, that totally proves her point.

However, since Julia, herself, is faster at front crawl than any other stroke, I will encourage her to continue swimming that stroke for her freestyle.