We Are the Champions...

Swim team championships were on Saturday. This marked the end of an exciting, but tiring, summer swim season. Every day we were at the pool by 9:30, with practices going until 11. It was all worth it, as our swim club took home the Championship victory for the third year in a row!

Grace starting her freestyle race

All three of my kids swam freestyle and backstroke. Yes, even Little Brother, who's only 5. The '6 and unders' swim half the length of the pool, 12.5 yards. The best moment of the day for me was watching my son swim backstroke. At the beginning of the summer he couldn't do it at all. He'd sink like a rock. Now what he does more resembles a drowning child bobbing up for one last gasp of breath, than it does swimming. But put enough of those bobs back to back, and all of the sudden he's moving backwards down the pool! And he refuses help from the coach in the pool (that age has a coach for each lane to help when needed). He's so proud of himself that he can now do it.

In his backstroke race he was in lane 6 of 6. The gun fires, and the boys take off. By the time all the other boys had finished the race, my son was only about halfway done (apparently, the "almost drowning" method isn't that fast). At this point the entire pool deck starts shouting his name and cheering him on. It was great! There I am, crying and cheering, and my son realizes everyone's rooting for him. So what does he do? Starts laughing! Now he's bobbing and gasping, and flailing his arms, and swimming... and laughing! Not helping him go faster, but it was hilarious to watch. When he finally finished the crowd roared, and the first thing he said was, "Did I win?"

Little brother before his backstroke race

There's not much to say about Little Sister, other than that she's a Rock Star Swimmer! Placed second in both her heats, even though she's swimming against girls one year older. She's a natural in the water. If she chooses to stick with it, swimming might be her thing.

Little Sis on the blocks

As for Grace, she did great in her races. Her blood sugars were ok. Adrenaline blocks the absorption of insulin, so she always runs high on race day, but it's hard to correct because once the adrenaline is gone we don't want her to crash. She was in the mid 200s when I was able to correct her about an hour before her first race, then catch her coming down at 87 right after in time for a snack.

The coolest thing was that we saw a counselor from Grace's camp at the race! She swims for another team, and Grace noticed her right away. She told me she could see she wasn't wearing a pump, but could see the infusion site bump under her suit. So we went over and said hi! How cool is that!

I've felt so busy this summer, and I'm regretfully behind on my blog correspondence. I have a lot going on, that I'll elaborate on soon. But I'm still here - reading all your blogs and comments. I hope you're all well as summer is winding down. Have a great Monday!