Swim Championships

In our house sports are strictly optional. In fact they're a treat. You get to do them if you want to and if your behavior warrants it. Denis has stopped playing soccer, which is just fine by me. Liam was withdrawn from the Bball team one season because his behavior at school was poor.

There is only one exception to this rule - Swim Team. Swim team is a required sport for all the kids. Mimi and I both agree that the kids need to know how to swim. Whether they swim fast or not is up to them. But being on swim team is like having an entire season of swim lessons essentially for free. So we clued into that early on and have the whole family signed up.

At the beginning of the season neither Seamus or Tara could make it across the pool. They were still learning how to stay above the water. And the nice thing about the Evendale swim team is that there's no pressure to compete. If you can't swim, or even if you can, coming to the meets is your call. There was no question for either of the young ones. Since they couldn't make it 25m they wouldn't compete.

And then, 2 weeks back, Seamus had a minor breakthrough. With no obvious progression, he suddenly made it across the pool! You'd expect that he'd go 5m, then 10m, and so on until 25. But no. He went 2m, then 3m, then 25. It wasn't exactly what you'd call swimming, it was doggie-paddle, but he cleared a length. There was much celebration in the house at the news!

Since he made his length Seamus immediately started thinking of swimming in the championships. I think he had ideas of winning something. So he expressed a desire to swim in them. The problem was, to qualify for the championships you have to compete in 2 meets. And the second to last meet of the season was that night. We called the coach and quickly got him onto the roster. He was going to swim in his first meet!

Race time came, and Seamus was very excited! He just knew he was going to smoke everyone. After all, on his second day of playing Bball he was one of the best kids on the team. Why not swimming? As the race began it was clear that there were two camps of 6 year olds. Ones who could actually swim freestyle - with alternate breathing pattern and everything. And those who couldn't. And Seamus finished at the back of the second group. Yup - he came in dead last. He got out of the pool in tears. He said he didn't want to compete any more - he was done.

The last meet of the season was just a couple days later. After going back and forth several times, Seamus again agreed to swim. But this time he did a little better. He still got smoked by the real swimmers, but he came in in front of a couple of the doggie-paddlers. So this time he was just angry instead of crying. And again - no interest in the championships.

Until of course the championships came around, and every kid in the village was talking about them. Of course then he was back on the team! He had qualified, so he was good to go. When his event came you could see he was nervous. But excited also. There were tons of people cheering him on, and he ate that up. There were 43 kids in his event. The top 12 made the finals, but he had no fear of being in that group. He did his normal paddle and amazing came in 34th. He was unhappy until he heard that he beat 9 other kids. Then he was back to his normal happy, cocky self. It's going to be really interesting to see how he develops. I'm guessing eventually he'll be a very solid swimmer.

Denis' story is a bit different. He's been on the team for 3 years. And he puts a very good effort in. But his CP really holds him back. In a 50m event it's not uncommon for kids to finish before he's made the turn. But he has not given up. He's clearly not pleased, but he does see his times improve, and unlike in land-based sports, he's actually started to close the gap on some of his peers. But in 3 years of racing he'd never beaten another kid in a race.

In the championships he swam the 50 free. It's his best event as the leg-kick doesn't require much flexibility. Mimi and I were both there to watch the race. He was in the slowest heat. His seed time was actually almost competitive with the other boys. It was 7 seconds behind one of them and 9 behind another. Denis has really worked on his diving and you can tell. It's every bit as good as most of the other kids. As the race started and they got into the water he was even with 2 of the 3 other boys. That's not uncommon. What happens next is that the other kids quickly pull away and Denis is left alone. Only this time it didn’t' happen.

One boy pulled away, another had a slight lead, but the 3rd boy was just 2 feet ahead of Denis. You could see Denis recognize this, and really start to put his total effort into the swim. This had never happened to him before, and he was using every ounce of energy to stay close. Going into the turn he was just a bit behind, but coming out of the turn he had a lead! A lead! For the first time in his young life. The whole way back the pool every Evendale parent was screaming their lungs out for Denis to push, with his parents screaming loudest of all! The lead ebbed and flowed. Denis would pull away, the other boy would catch up. And so it went all the way to the wall. But in the end Denis touched first!!! He had beaten someone in a race! I couldn't believe it. He had never really even been close before, but he stuck with it and he finally had some success. Having someone to swim with clearly got him to push harder than normal as he bettered his best time by 8 seconds! That's a ton in a 60-second race. I was just so proud of him I can't even explain. It was a wonderful feeling. And for the first time coming out of the pool he really looked happy. It was one of those "life could have ended and I would have been fine with it" moments. Even thinking about it chokes me up.

It's funny, but Liam's swims were, in comparison, almost anti-climactic. There's now two ways about it, the kid's fast - on land and in the water. He's regularly 1, 2, or 3rd place in the dual meets. And with 9 teams in the finals we expected he'd do well. He could have placed in 7 events, but kids are only allowed to swim 4. So he was in 25 free, 25 back, Medley relay, and free relay. He easily made the finals in both his individual events, but his times put him in the B final.

The way they run things is 12 kids make the final. 6 in the A final, and 6 in the B final. If you're in the B final, and you swim the fastest time of all 12 kids, you get 7th place. Basically you're not allowed to move in front of anyone in the A group. I can see why. A kid could sand-bag in the prelims, get into the B group, then sneak out a win without the A group knowing about it. So they go this route. Liam seems to lack motivation in the prelims, but he always brings it in the finals.

So when final time came around, in his free event he came in 2nd in the B group. So he got 8th place. But his time was faster than 2 of the A-final kids. So really he should have been 6th. Similar story in the back. He won his final, and had a time faster than 2 A kids. So really he should have been 5th. Instead he was 7th. Oh well. He still did great, scored a lot of points, and set new PRs in both events.

The relays were more of the same. Most of the Evendale kids are near the top of their races. So they knew they'd be competitive. In the free relay they were right in the think of things, but were missing one of their fast swimmers. So they ended up a solid 3rd. In the medley relay they had one weak link that set them back, but Liam made up ground and they ended up 4th. So in his 4 events Liam for 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th. Not a bad day at the pool!

It's funny. They're all three very different kids. But they all had fantastic races, and I'm incredibly proud of all of them as a result. For different reasons, sure, but tremendously proud nevertheless.

College Prep

Before I get in to the story I need to give a little background to the older demographic.  Those of us in our 40s grew up with a set of drinking games that apparently no longer exist (well, outside of retirement homes I guess).  We played the good old games like quarters, Mexican, Bullshit, that crazy counting game, etc.  I never really considered it, but as each successive generation feels an obligation to break from the past in terms of clothing, music, etc., the same is apparently also true for drinking games.

Today's drinking games are a touch more active.  Which I think it great!  Nothing more entertaining than active drunks!  A few I've become familiar with (by hanging our with the current crop of college students) are baseball, beer pong, and flip cup.  They're mostly team games, and involve tossing ping-pong balls into cups of beer, drinking the beer, and (optionally) flipping the cups so they land upside down.  I've spent a couple good nights observing these next-generation games at recent parties at the college boy's house.  Boatloads of fun!

OK.  So the stage is set.

Denis got invited to a sleepover party at the house of one of his 6th grade classmates.  The boy's name is Joey, and he's the youngest of 3 (or 4) brothers.  I think the oldest brother is in college and there's 1 or 2 in HS.  Denis was very happy to be invited, as he and Joey aren't always the best of friends.

I dropped him off around 6 on a Saturday night.  I stayed up fairly late just in case there was a phone call, but none ever came.  So it appeared he had a good time.  I picked him up the following morning after church.  Denis was a wreck.  According to him they had stayed up all night, not falling asleep until about 7am.  And they got up at 10.  Rough night!

I asked him what they did.  In true pre-teen fashion he gave me a couple grunted answers.  Watched movies.  Played video games.  That didn't last us the whole ride home, so I pressed a bit,  What else did you do?  Anything else that was fun?

Oh yeah, he said, brightening up: we played marshmallow pong!!  Now of course I wasn't familiar with the game, so I asked him to describe it.  And as he did the most curious thing happened.  It all seemed so familiar.  The game is played on a ping-pong table.  You pour a bit of soda into several cups and arrange them on your end of the table while your opponents do the same on their side.  Then you take turns tossing marshmallows into the cups; and when one goes in the opponent has to drink the soda in the cup.

Is this sounding slightly familiar to anyone?  If not, go back and re-read the second paragraph.  Yup.  They were practicing kiddie-version drinking games!!  Isn't that great?  You send the boy off to a sleepover and he comes back with some real life skills.  I was so proud.  But I wasn't nearly as proud as I was happy.  That I picked him up instead of Mimi.  She would have exploded!

So here's the dilemma.  He says he was good at it.  Does that mean I should bring him to Bobby's next party?  Tough call...

Not a white person

I had just picked Denis up from his piano lesson and was taking him to his VB match.  He was sitting in the front seat next to me.  It was a pretty nice day, and he was wearing shorts.  As I looked over I noticed that his legs looked really dry.  Naturally, being the dad, I just can't let it go.

So I look over and say to him "Damn!  Your legs look really dry!"  OK, so maybe I said 'Darn.'  Generally a volley like this is met with resistance.  This time it was more like defeat.  The essence of the response I got back was resignation.  'Yeah, they're always dry."  Those of you who have kids will recognize this as a strategy to give up in the face of inevitability.  Nothing I can do about it pops!  Just going to have to live with them being dry.

Naturally I don't buy that.  So I ask him if he put lotion on them after his shower in the morning.  And of course the answer is no.  Too rushed in the morning.  This brings me into full dad mode - well of course they're going to be dry if you don't put lotion on them!

Silence follows.  He's working on perfecting the surly teen thing, and this is a great time to practice.  Eventually he pipes in with a question: "Why don't white people's legs get dry?"  At first I thought he had simply mis-worded the question.  He of course wanted to know why white people's legs got so dry all the time.  I was all prepared to deliver and answer.  But then it hit me.  He did word the question correctly - he just doesn't consider himself to be White!

I mean it really hit me.  I damn near missed my next shift.  He doesn't consider himself to be white.  And why should he - he's 1/2 White 1/2 Asian.  So he's really neither.  But he's light skinned and has brown hair, and I guess unconsciously I've always thought of him as white.  But he's not.  At least he's not in his mind.  Wild!

Once I recovered we talked about my friend Chris.  Chris is black, and during the winters in Wisconsin would always complain about his legs being ashy.  And that every race gets dry skin, but the darker your skin tone the more obvious it is.

So I think I recovered OK.  But the whole time I'm thinking: Denis isn't White!  Who knew?

Those of you who know the family history know that I am not a fan of children skipping grades.  I just don't see the benefit.  Sure, they get to college a year or two faster, but it doesn't make them smarter.  And in many cases they're not mature enough to handle the environment and suffer as a result.  I offer by way of example my oldest brother (skipped 2 grades) and oldest sister (skipped one grade).  After the experiences with those two my parents did not allow the rest of us to skip.  Thank God!

I have passed this philosophy into my parenting.  I do not try to teach my kids topics ahead of when they learn them in class.  If I did, when the class learned the topic they'd be bored.  And would likely misbehave and get into trouble.  So again; what's the point?

But try as I might to hold them back, somehow the slippery buggers get away from me.  It appears that this has just happened with Seamus.

It wasn't malicious or spiteful learning (is there such a thing?)  He just happened to be in a room when the older kids were doing some math exercises.  And he couldn't help but overhear what they were doing.  This is how he learned to add.  Mandy was working with Tara, drilling her on basic addition.  She's in 2nd grade, so this is what she should be learning.  It wasn't sticking right away, so they went over it several times.  Think of Tara as Teflon when it comes to math and Seamus as glue.  Gorilla glue.

Now Seamus is in kindergarten.  I don't think they're even talking about basic addition.  It's more numbers, number line etc.  The fact that he picked up addition wasn't a big concern as he would get that instruction soon enough.  But it's gone just a bit beyond that.

Mandy came home today and announced that she was quizzing Seamus on addition facts in the van.  OK.  How'd he do?  Well, she was impressed that he could do the problems from his seat in the van.  No numbers in front of him, it was all in his head.  Again I discounted it, as I figured he had memorized the single number addition chart.

No, Mandy says.  It wasn't single number addition.  "Really?"  I asked?  "He's on double-digit addition already?  Wow.  That is advanced for kindergarten."  No again.  

He's doing triple digit addition.  In his head.  And getting them right.  As a kindergartener.

Holy cow!  Mimi can't do that!  I am just going to get myself mentally prepared now for behavioral problems in the next few years.  Like there wouldn't have been enough of those regardless.

Good with the bad I suppose.

Fun with Facial Hair

I am lazy over the Winter Holidays.  Well actually I'm lazy all of the time.  But I really go all out (if that can be said about laziness - it's sounds too active but you get the idea) over Christmas.  One of my lazy rituals is that I stop shaving.  I shower and all.  I'm clean.  I just don't shave,

When the holidays are over and it's time to be moderately presentable and go back to work I do try to tidy the facial hair up a bit.  I trim it here and there.  But it's hard for my to jump back in to daily shaving, so I keep a 'beard' for a while.

I use quotes because anyone who has seen the sparsely populated follicles across my face will tell you I'm simply not capable of growing a true beard.  But I let the hair grow anyway and hope that someday it will fill in.  It hasn't yet, but I've only been doing this 20 years now.  One must show some patience.

After it's grown as much as it's going to I try to have a little fun with it by removing it in stages.  The sideburns generally go first as they are just awful.  They never fill in and it looks like I started to shave on each side and gave up after one stroke.  So to save us all a little embarrassment I take that off early.

I'll lose a bit of the excess off the neck next.  I keep just enough so I can continue to get by with an electric razor every couple of days, but otherwise trim it back a bit as it generally looks pretty bad too.

The next stage is the goatee.  I keep everything about moustache-wide down through the chin and just a bit underneath.  This - well, in my humble opinion (which I should point out is not shared by my wife) - actually looks decent.  So I stick at this stage for a few weeks.  

This year when I made it to the goatee stage I announced it to the world via my FaceBook status.  Really have to learn to be more careful about that.  I phrased it as "Denis touched razor to cheek for the first time in 5 weeks. Smooooth! [And no cuts]."

Of course my friends just couldn't let that one go without comment (and let's be honest.  I phrased it in exactly that way so as to generate some comments.  I do try to entertain).  What I didn't expect is that the first comment would come from my business partner in Geneva.  That's cool, because Andy's a good guy.  But what worried me was how little it takes for some of my VB friends to get rolling.  Here's how the exchange went:

Andy - I dearly hope you're talking about your face.

Jonesy (from VB) - I don't know you Andy, but I like the way you think! I always pictured Denis pretty much hairless anyway

Andy again - Hi David. Who'd have thought the McGrath's hairy arse would become a topic for international debate? I must admit I haven't given his naked body as much thought as you clearly have, but if in your head he's nice and smooth, then who am I to disagree?

Luckily (very luckily!) they found new posts to respond to and let it lie there.  That's a combination I don't want to encourage too much!

Over the weekend I decided it was time to trim it back again.  I had never done the "connected Fu Manchu" before.  Essentially a moustache, then straight down on the sides, to connecting underneath by a thin patch.  I thought it would look kinda cool.

I was wrong!  Oh Lord it looked horrible.  So after trimming out the middle I quickly lost the under-chin connection.  It looked like a training bra for an Amish beard.  That had to go.  But after it went I noticed that the downspouts of the remaining Fu were terribly uneven.  And in attempting to drive some equality I ended up killing them altogether.  

So now I have a moustache.

I did all this while everyone else was at the boy's BB games.  So they had a nice surprise waiting for them when they got home.  Liam was first.  "Ewww"  quickly followed by "Yuck" was the verdict.  No surprise there.  But the question that followed did catch me off guard.  After looking it over and deciding that yes, he in fact didn't like it at all, Liam looked at me with a puzzle on his face.  "Dad" he asked "when did you grow the moustache?"

When did I grow it?  Now that's an odd question given the fact that I'd been sporting a goatee for 3 weeks.  Near as I can tell he got used to the goatee - that was just how dad looked.  And in his mind it was just one thing.  All together.  And that was gone.  So clearly in the span of 2 hours I had shaved off the goatee and grown a new moustache!

How's that for hormones?

Looking back I'm really glad it doesn't work that way - I'd be shaving every hour!

No pictures this time, maybe next year!

Basketball!

It's Winter.  That brings a lot of indoor time with it.  But in the last couple years the kids have decided another sport was in order so they're all playing basketball.  ALL of them.  Even 6-year-old Seamus!

I think Tara is playing too.  She keeps telling me she's on a team.  But I've yet to take her to a practice or a game yet.  So I'm not certain what the deal is there.  This is the kind of attention you get in a 4-child household.  You want undivided attention then go be an only child somewhere!

Anyway.  Basketball.  Both Denis and Liam play a brand of BB that would at least be recognizable.  They dribble, pass, shoot, etc.  Sure they take free throws from a spot a foot or more closer to the basket, but that's about it.  Essentially the same game you see on TV.

For Seamus?  Well.  What he plays is about as close to basketball as throwing a tennis ball around the community pool is close to water polo.  In other words not so close at all.  First of all, dribbling is clearly optional.  Some kids try to give it an effort - usually with two hands at a time - and that's not so bad.  But other kids forget it completely.  They just pick the ball up and run!  Secondly; the ball.  It's about the size of a decent melon.  And about the same color come to think of it!  It's small enough that your average 5th grader could palm it.  What else?  Lesse, Thirdly there's the defense.  You're familiar with a "3 second" violation?  When the offense camps out under the basket for too long?  When in the bizarro world of Kindergarten BB the defense is required to camp out!  They can't come outside the box to defend at all.  So you end up with 5 kids all acting like chained up junkyard dogs.  If any kid is crazy enough to venture near the box with the ball they jump at him gnashing their teeth as he/she stops just outside their reach.  Oh, and finally the basket is lowered 2 feet to 8 feet.

So in other words it's about an much entertainment as anyone could possibly stand at 9am on Saturday morning.  I go to the game tired and grumpy and leave with a huge grin on my face.

Seamus joined the team late.  They were already halfway through their season when I relented and let him join.  I'm not really a fan of organized sports at that age, but after a month of snow anything that gets him out of the house and lets him run around and burn off steam is a good thing!  So he's never played before, and the team is already fully formed.  No worries according to the coach.  He'll fit right in.

I picked him up after the first practice, and the coach happily announced to me that (of the 10 players they had) Seamus was one of the top 4!  This was a little bit of a surprise to me.  I know he's a mean soccer player, but for his first practice that is pretty impressive.  Coach went on to tell me that he made this assessment by watching him shoot.  Until Seamus arrived they only had 3 kids who could get the ball all the way up to the rim.  And Seamus can do that just fine.  So Voila!  He's in the top 4!

This last weekend everyone had games.  Mimi and I split duties.  I took Seamus to the early game, and she took Liam and Denis to the later ones (so I could stay home and work on taxes - yay).

It was a banner weekend for the McGrath boys.  Seamus' team (though they don't keep score) won handily, and Seamus scored his first ever basket!  Liam's team lost a close battle, 24-22, but Liam scored as well.  He probably scores in 1/3 of the games.  So that's pretty cool.  Denis' team won easily also, and while Denis very rarely scores (gets that from Dad!) he picked up a point in this one!  There was much rejoicing!  Next weekend will bring new excitement to be sure, but for now I'm just going to enjoy one weekend of success for all my boys!

Where am I?

I am convinced that sometimes the kids just forget which environment they are in and as a result slip up.  Liam in particular is bad with this.  He'll regularly come up with a comment at the dinner table that is well suited for his 4th grade classmates on the playground (as they try to impress each other with how rude they can be).  So I just remind him where he is and who he's speaking to and we get back on track.

I don't know if I'm pleased or sad, but it appears this phenomena bleeds over into school as well.  Liam had an assignment to write a letter to Santa.  The front is beautiful.  Standard cute kid writing to the big guy.  But when he turned the page over he clearly lost his focus and forgot where he was.

He starts by asking for 3 presents.  And that's not bad - I think every kid puts that in.  But I'd hazard a guess that most kids don’t put in the next part.  And I quote:

"If you don't, I'll show the president my picture of you drunk, standing on Rudolph, with a bottle of beer on your head!  This is serious!"

To her credit, the teach very nicely circled that part in red and wrote "Threats are no part of a friendly letter."

No shit!  No punishment for this one, but a lot of disappointed head shaking.

Patience

One of the things that's always confounded me about the kids is their level of patience.  Specifically their incredibly varied levels of patience.  In some situations if you tell them that something won't take place for 25 minutes they'll act like it's the end of the world - they can never possibly wait that long.

And then of course by the time they're done whining about it the time is up.

But on the other hand they can perform tasks that could make a piece-work factory floor guy go mad with the repetitions.  Like when Denis was maybe 3 and he 'rode' his tricycle up the driveway.  He wouldn't get off the bike and walk it up.  He wanted to stay in the seat.  And so he reached his little legs forward, pulled the bike up 6 inches, lifted up to pull forward again and lost 4 of the 6 he gained, and then did it again.  Must have taken him 45 minutes to make it 30 yards.  But it didn't bother him one bit.  It drove me crazy to watch him, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

Liam had one of these events over the summer.  The larger McGrath clan went up to Michigan Adventure amusement park for a day.  Everyone had a great time.  In the middle of a hot afternoon I gave Liam a 20oz. water bottle and asked him to fill it up.  This was a standard single-use screw top water bottle: Absopure, Poland Springs, something like that.  Well he runs off with the bottle to refill it.

There's a lot going on so I don't even realize how long he's been gone until he comes back with the bottle filled up.  It must have taken him 30 minutes, and the fountain is all of 1 minute away from our spot.  I asked him what he'd been doing and he answered that he had been filling up the bottle.  And sure enough, the bottle was full.  OK, whatever.  We're on vacation and I'm in no mood to start a fight.  We drink the water pretty quickly (much faster than it took to fill it up!) and this time I decide that I'll fill it up.

So I walk off to the fountain and immediately run into problems.  The shape of the bottle and the curve of the fountain are clearly incompatible.  I can cram the neck of the bottle on it, but can only get it to fill about 20% that way.  I look around for another fountain - there isn't one.  I look for a spigot or some other source of water - none to be found.  Now I'm really confused.  How did Liam fill it up?  I drank my fill from the fountain and returned with a mostly-empty bottle of water for the family.

When I got back I tracked down Liam.  I asked him where he filled up the bottle.  And of course he points to the fountain I've just come from.  So then I ask him - Well how is it that you were able to fill it up, it doesn't fit?  Oh, he says, I noticed it wouldn't fit right away, so I used the cap.  What do you mean, I say, you put the cap into the stream of water to shoot it into the bottle?  No, he replies, I'd just fill the cap with water and pour it into the bottle.

I'm sure my brain simply didn't comprehend what he was saying the first time he said it.  It was too outrageous.  When I finally understood I was no less astounded.  The cap must hold 1/4 oz. or less.  He likely never filled it completely.  And every time he poured I'm sure he spilled some.  It must have taken him filling the cap 150-200 times to get the water bottle full.  And yet that's what he did.  While at an amusement park full of fun rides.  With no complaint and no bragging.  He in fact didn't even seem to think anything about it.  I asked for it to be filled, this was the only way to fill it, and so he filled it up.

150 thimble-sized caps worth.  Amazing.

What I want to know is where is that patience when it's time for piano lessons?