Joseph's swim meet and why he apparently needs someone to hold his hand and walk him up to the starting block every time

Joseph has swam competitively for four or five years now and he just loves it. I don't honestly know how he can stand being in the water that much because I would hate it but that is what he does.

With us having a billion kids it is really hard to get him into all of his practices which makes me feel guilty but we can only do so much. He would really, really like to be at practice more often and I have assured him that we will do better once school starts.

Even without steady practices he has already qualified to go to state in his favorite event, the splash and dash 50 freestyle.

This last weekend he had a two day swim meet and he was super pumped to be swimming the 50 free. He was looking forward to, and counting on, bettering his time.

The first day he had three races. The first one was a relay. I was working concessions but ran over to the pool when it was time for him to race. The pool was one of those really long outdoor ones but I managed to find a seat down near the end on some really hard bleachers. seriously, what good is my junk in the trunk if I can't even use it for padding?

It was hard to find my son from all the way down the pool. Most of the swimmers have the same physique, wear the same kind of suits and with goggles on...well it makes it challenging to spot which one is my kid.

But I found him, standing up on the blocks waiting to start. I was mildly surprised that he was swimming the first leg of the relay but I was ready to cheer him on no matter what. He dove in, way too deep in my humble swimmers mom opinion and quickly resurfaced which was not like him and then started swimming. I realized that I hadn't seen him swimming in awhile but I was very surprised at how bad his form looked. He just didn't look right, he had to take a breath with every stroke and his arms were all bent. I sat there, stunned and beating myself up mentally for not getting him to practice more consistently.

Then he got out of the pool...and I realized that I had been cheering for someone else's son.

ahem...not one of my finer moments... at least I wasn't yelling how bad his form looked. That would have been mortifying!

I quickly scanned the other swimmers. I don't know which made me more relieved, that I hadn't actually missed him swimming or that his form wasn't really bad after all.

He swam his leg of the relay and looked really good. I was excited to watch him swim in his next event.

Unfortunately, he missed his next event because he wasn't paying attention. The rules are, you miss an event then you have to sit out the next event too.

I was surprised, because he's not an amateur at this whole swimming gig, but we laughed it off and said "Well, he'll never do that again!"

Right?

Ok, let's do a show of hands for who all can guess what happened the next day?

Ohhh...Everyone has their hand up.

Ahem...

Next day comes. Joseph is so excited because his 50 free is the second event of the day. His first event is the backstroke which he loathes, not his fav but he has to do the events his coach signs him up for.

Since you all seem to know what happened, I won't make you guess. since the suspense is apparently gone already.

Yes, he missed his first event.

So, he had to miss his 50 free.

Well, he won't make that mistake again?

Right?...

I'm hoping that is the case.