Cold Water Swim….

Our twelve year old had her first open water lake swim of the year on the weekend.

Ten kids were tricked into meeting at the edge of an ice floe to practice their open water skills before an upcoming competition. A few of the swimmers were sporting wet-suits. Hanna insisted on wearing her $12.99 Nike bathing suit I bought her at Winners. And when I say, she “insisted” I mean, she asked me if we owned a wet-suit because she might freeze otherwise and I said, “No, just wear your cheap, Nike one.” Then I probably mumbled something about not being a conformist.

I will not bore anyone with the details of the actual swim because it was too cold to watch from behind my warm fleece and hot cup of tea, or the fact that of the ten kids we started with, only seven were accounted for by the time we left.

And before you say, “What? You lost three kids?” You really should take a glass-half-full approach and instead say things like, “Hmm, seven out of ten. That’s a solid B- and on the first attempt? Not bad at all. It leaves some room for improvement and probably slightly above average in these temps.”

Okay, so the lake was cold.

So cold in fact, Hanna’s first item of clothing (thick, purple hoodie) was immediately wrapped around her face and head before struggling to climb into the mini-van.

She pulled the hoodie around her chin and tied the strings leaving a hole the size of a quarter around her mouth–I’m assuming for breathing and talking but we may never know. It’s possible she had a mini-stroke in there and wasn’t sure how to wear clothing anymore.

She whispered through the hole, “Can we stop to get some chicken noodle soup?”

It seemed like a strange choice given it’s almost July. Even the people at the Tim Horton’s drive-thru window asked me to wait while they looked around in the back to see if they had any leftover from their winter menu.

Hanna sipped her soup through her mouth-hole in her sweatshirt and cranked the heat in the van, wincing when I tried to crack a window to prevent the barf in my mouth from actually coming all the way out.

Two girls got out of the lake and didn’t even put on towels. No blue lips, no goose-bumps. Just pure zombie.

And that’s how you can tell.

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