Day One

This morning was the first swim team practice.

It was early.

And it was cold.

That pretty much sums up swim team practice.

We left at 7:15 which is nothing short of traumatic to our gentle home schooling psyches. I pulled Mark out of sleep at 7:10 and slipped him from his warm pajamas into his swim suit. I had enlisted Braeden's help in assembling Mark's swim bag. He put in goggles and towel and t-shirt, I put in a pair of pants. I put a groggy Mark in his seat in the van and put a cup of milk in one hand and an oatmeal and raisin breakfast cookie in the other.

And we were off.

Swim team practice (for Braeden and Emma) is from 7:30-8:30, then Mark has swim lessons from 8:50-9:20. Sounds like a long time at the pool but it's actually considerably streamlined from last year.

I shuttled Mark into the boys' dressing room and told him to meet me on the other side.

He took a long time.

He finally came out, dripping wet. He'd taken a shower because he thought he was getting into the pool. He was getting into the pool, just not for an hour and a half.

I'm not sure what the temperature was but it was at least in the 50s.

I wrapped Mark in a jacket and his towel and sat him in the sun. He was still working on his breakfast as he shivered on.

Then he spilled the milk on the towel.

Eventually I pulled Mark's damp little person onto my lap. I put his jacket on his legs, had him wear my jacket with the hood up and wrapped him in his (mostly dry but a little milky) towel.

And we sat while Braeden and Emma swam their valiant first day exhausting laps.

And waited for the blessed hour when Mark could slide into the steamy pool.

A woman scorned has nothing on a cold Mark. His discomfort and displeasure manifests itself in a very angry Mark.

Finally it was 8:50. Blessed 8:50! Mark got into the pool and was happy. I concentrated on sending him mental messages to pay attention to his teacher. He received maybe 60% of the mental messages.

I'll take it.

After lessons, I sent Mark on his merry shivering way to the dressing room. I went to the playground and found Braeden and asked him to go check on Mark. Braeden returned to tell me that Mark didn't have any underwear. Our tag team packing of the swim bag had forgotten that important element.

Braeden said Mark wouldn't "go commando" as Braeden calls the underwear-less state. He said Mark wouldn't do anything and that he was mad.

Somehow I could picture it.

I instructed Braeden to gather Mark and all of his belongings and bring it all to me on the playground. Mark came out with tear streaked face and wrapped like a burrito in his towel.

And he was mad.

I convinced him that his only options were the pants or soaking wet swim suit. He finally "went commando" and I held up the towel as a makeshift dressing room for him. Once he was dressed and had swiped the tears away, he was off to play freeze tag with his siblings and the other kids at the playground.

He ran by and said, "Mom, this is not bad!" I may never get him to wear underwear again.

So that was day one.

How many days in a summer?