"Winning" Even When You're Not

Hello and welcome to a peaceful stay-at-home Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is October 12th.

 I'm thrilled to be staying home today. Sometimes being home is the adventure. On an unhurried Saturday morning, I can sleep in until 9:30. I can enjoy a strong freshly brewed coffee while listening to the 7th grader give the highlights of yesterday's swim meet hosted at the University of Minnesota in Morris. "I was just like a college student!" she relayed as she described walking across the campus.

Out of all of our children, this child is the one who wants to win. As a toddler learning to play Chutes & Ladders and Candyland, she'd shout, "I'M supposed to win!" Winning has been a big deal ever since and tempering her expectations around winning has been a primary parenting objective.

I braced myself for a tough season of disappointment when she decided to join the swim team. She loves to swim but had no interest in doing any pre-season training. I'd get a look of incredulity from her when I suggested she get some laps in through WOW Swim, an off-season opportunity to skillbuild.

Practice started in August. On the first day, I honestly thought she'd come home complaining, and not just because she had to bike to and from practice. I thought she'd come home and protest about how hard it was. Instead, she came home thrilled. Then I thought the complaining would commence after the first week once the novelty of early days wore off. A week later - still no complaints. Not even when she had to bike back and forth to town twice a day.

The first day of school was a small speed bump as it was also the first meet of the season. Loathing to miss the first afternoon, not just of school, but high school, she worried her teachers would be upset with her absence. The teachers assured her they would not.

She came home from the second or third meet and announced, "I didn't win a medal," and with this declaration unfurled her disappointment about not winning. "I want to be first," she admitted. Expected. 

This was my moment. 

I explained that as a seventh grader, she wasn't going to be winning, that she'd most likely be last in every meet - and that was okay. The bar was set incredibly low and there was no expectation for seventh graders to win.

After the come-to-Jesus-talk, I thought she might quit. I thought she might decide that not swimming was better than not winning. But she stuck with it. And then something happened.

She started improving her swim times.

She was still last, but she was getting a new sort of win: She was improving.

In the last several meets she has consistently shaved seconds off her previous time. She even came in third out of five swimmers once. And at yesterday's True Team event at the University of Minnesota in Morris, she was so proud because her relay team had gotten second to last place.

And through the entire season, she hasn't complained. Not once.

"She's got grit," my husband said this morning.

We have seen new qualities emerge from our daughter. She's willing to do the work. She gets her homework done as soon as it gets assigned. She doesn't like being absent and she values punctuality. She can do hard things.

When she announced that she had shaved another 12 seconds off her 100 Butterfly, I told her, "The good thing about starting at the bottom of the mountain is that every step feels like a win."