Julia went into the meet convinced that she was going to swim poorly, and instead, she swam a New England qualifying time in the 50 butterfly and took a whopping six seconds off her 100 freestyle. Finally happy with her results, she was buoyant after the race, and undoubtedly spent time galloping later that evening thinking about what events Lilly Mintz qualified for New Englands in.
Madeleine also swam the 50 butterfly and the 100 freestyle, and she happened to be in the lane I was timing for her 100 free. This was the first time Madeleine had ever swam that particular event, and I could not emphasize enough that she was going to be swimming a 100.
ME: So Madeleine. This is a one hundred. That means you're going to swim four laps.
MADELEINE: Uh-huh.
ME: So you don't stop after two laps like in the fifty. Four laps. Down, flip turn, back, flip turn, down AGAIN, flip turn, and back.
MADELEINE: Okay.
I was kind of shocked that she actually swam it without incident, and even qualified for District Championships. After all, this is the kid who, on Monday at a Harvard swim clinic, did this:
COACH: Okay, we're going to do open turns now. So swim butterfly or breast stroke to the wall and show me your open turn.
SEVERAL KIDS IN FRONT OF MADELEINE: (swimming fly or breast to the wall and doing an open turn)
MADELEINE: (obliviously swimming freestyle to the wall and doing a flip turn)
COACH: Madeleine, that was a beautiful freestyle flip turn, but we're doing OPEN TURNS right now.
MADELEINE: (looking as if hearing this for the first time)
Happily, she pulled it off, and managed to win her 50 butterfly to boot.
Sunday was an even busier day. After church in the morning, we Rowes headed to one of our town's elementary schools to see a production of "The Little Mermaid" onstage, performed by our town's Community Theater. There we met a bunch of Julia's friends, who we were treating to the show, as part of Julia's birthday party celebration:
I was worried the show might be a little too juvenile for a bunch of middle schoolers, but instead, the girls enjoyed it, and it turned out to be a little too adult for Madeleine.
URSULA: (singing the word "damn" in one of her songs)
MADELEINE: (gasping and turning to me) I think she SWEARED!
ME: Yeah, I think she did.
URSULA: (singing the word "hell" in another song)
MADELEINE: (gasping) Mommy! I think she sweared AGAIN!
Swearing aside, Madeleine delighted in all aspects of the show, keeping a whispered running commentary going on which singers she liked, which she didn't, which songs were her favorite, and which special and added effects were most exciting.
MADELEINE: Mommy! Bubbles!
or
MADELEINE: (covering her ears) That was LOUD!
or
MADELEINE: Mommy! I think I've seen that guy who plays Prince Eric before. I think he might play Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter!"
I don't know, suburban community theater might be kind of small potatoes for a European movie actor.
Madeleine also shared her critique of the singers after the show had ended.
MADELEINE: They all had too much BRATO. I don't like brato. It sounded like they were trying way too hard to sing with so much brato.
JULIA, ETHAN AND I: It's VIBRATO.
MADELEINE: What?
JULIA, ETHAN, AND I: It's called "vibrato."
MADELEINE: It is?!?
Upon leaving the performance, we all headed back to the Rowe household for pizza and cake to celebrate Julia's upcoming birthday:
And immediately after scarfing down all that food, we said good-bye to Julia's friends and headed over to the Y for the Lap-a-thon! There was only 1/2 hour left in the event, so I told my girls to just swim as many laps as they could in that time and it would be good enough. Julia whipped out 78 and Madeleine 62, so we were able to head home knowing we'd raised some money for the Y and gotten in a quick workout. Of course, the girls were jonesing for more cake once we got home, and, well, since it was kind of a special day, I let them go for it.
Looking forward to some down time as we head into Thanksgiving, after the whirlwind of a weekend we had!
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