I knew right away when they said it was B on the phone at work that something was wrong.  “I don’t think so,” said my coworker, “He sounded perfectly calm.”  As I suspected, something indeed was wrong:  Anja’s school called to pick her up because she fell off the balance beam and cut open her chin.

Lucky for me!  I work 2½ hours away from my house!  And we only have one car, which was sitting happy as could be on the pier on the base all by its lonesome.  Fortunately, we have a friend from Spain who happens to live about a mile away who could pick up B to get her, but she had out-of-state visitors that already had plans and couldn’t take them to the hospital.  I finally got home 4 hours after it happened and we went straight to the emergency room.  The PA that saw her determined that she’d need stitches, and she was a bit nervous about the stitches but we assured her that she wouldn’t feel a thing…after she got the shots to numb it.

In case you’re not familiar with -caine medications - like I was - they have to inject it pretty much straight into flesh where the wound is…and this, my friends, is not a procedure for the faint of heart.  I realized during this whole ordeal how NOT okay I am with blood, especially blood coming out of my precious child’s face.  When he stuck the needle in it, I made the grievous mistake of watching, and even now the thought makes me a little bit woozy.  Anja, on the other hand, was a trooper.  She squeezed my hand so very, very tightly (and needed to be reminded to breathe when it was over) but she let him do his work without wiggling or screaming or even shedding a single tear.

As I mentioned, she was nervous about getting the stitches but once the numbness kicked in, she was totally fine.  So fine, in fact, that the PA had to tell her to please stop talking so he could get the stitches in properly.  Because she’s a picker, he thought it was best to put in individual stitches instead of looping them so if she did pick at them, they wouldn’t all unravel.  Smart guy, that one.  When all was said and done, she had 8 little stitches stitched of a lovely blue thread.  She was anxious to see them, and when he let her look in the mirror, she gasped in excitement and said, “Mamma, from now on, my new name is Bluebeard!”

Bluebeard (click if you're not faint of heart)

“Just to let you know, I’m going to be using chopsticks from now on.  I’m not really a silverware kind of girl anymore.”

{click on any photo for a larger version}

We got back today from a very exciting trip to Berlin, Germany that Anja qualified to compete in with the European Forces Swim League Championship meet.

I will certainly blog again soon about the rest of the trip, after my cholesterol levels go back down after the obscene amounts of bratwurst I consumed over the last 5 days.  For now, though, it’s all about Anja!

As I mentioned briefly a few posts ago, Anja qualified for Champs during the meet she swam in in Naples, Italy.  She qualified on her own for two events, the 50 meter freestyle (she had to swim it in under 49.55 seconds) and the 50 meter backstroke (she had to swim that in under 59.89 seconds).  A third event, the 100 meter freestyle, she missed by something like 2 seconds but was pulled up to participate in (1:55.99), so she had 3 individual events to compete in for this meet.

For the first time since she’s been competing in these meets, she said she got nervous before her first 2 events, both freestyles.  This was also her first time competing in a 50 meter pool which is considerably different than the 25 meter pools she’s swum in throughout the season.  As she waited for the 100m free to start, she was being a dork and swinging her arms and whoops, wouldn’t you know my daughter fell in while they were on the blocks.  Fortunately, they’re allowed one false start so she wasn’t disqualified.

Going to the blocks for her first event - Anja was in lane 3 (the lanes were numbered incorrectly, she’s in the actual lane 3 which was marked lane 2).

Swimmers, take your mark…

Go!

She ended up tied for 8th place in her heat, which was 16th or 17th overall, but the most important part for us was that she improved on her personal best time - the achievement we’ve always told her to strive for.

There’s video, too!

It’s kind of hard to ensure good coverage when you’re trying to watch the race out of one eye, but B did a better job than I did on the 100m free, huh?  I have no pictures but he has video!

You must pay attention to the announcer at the :36 mark…we all got a good laugh out of that.

Next was her 50 meter backstroke, her final - and favorite - event.  This time, unlike the previous 2 events, she finally had her familiar look of concentration and I could tell she was in The Zone.

For this event, she was in lane 4 (marked as lane 3 below).

She got a good, solid start which was a big improvement from her last couple of meets where her arms were already flailing well before she got into the right position to start using them.

She was looking strong, but the girl in lane 6 was stronger and had about a body’s length lead on her to start.

But she never gave up, and her stamina stayed with her to the end and she ended up first in her heat!  When combined with the 2nd heat (the faster of the 2 heats), she ended up 7th.  7th in all of the girls in the league aged 8 & under - which is quite a lot considering there were 18 teams competing - was so much better than we ever hoped for.  Even better was that she cut off almost 6 seconds from her personal best time

And that video…

There was an article in Stars & Stripes newspaper about the meet that you (but not we) can read here: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=123&article=60589&source=rss

All in all, it was a fantastic meet and we couldn’t be any prouder of how well she has done this season.  Now she gets some well-deserved time off and we will see if she wants to continue until we leave here…assuming, of course, we actually get our orders to leave here…

Isak and I are finally starting to feel better, though today seemed to be a step backwards with me having a very stiff neck and generally icky feeling by the end of the day.  Isak finally shook the fever he had for 5 days and was back at school yesterday.

I got the pictures from Anja’s first away meet tonight and I am so happy to have something, if not my own memories, to remind me of how much Anja can do when she puts her mind to it.

This posture looks familiar…

Presentation of her medal for first place in the 50 meter freestyle for girls 8 & under:

B and Anja went out for dinner in the birthplace of pizza.  He had this seafood creation, and Anja even loved the mussels.

Did someone say GELATO?  Yummmmm!

Dancing? for the leaning tower of Pisa:

Flexing? Leaning?  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here…

I’m so disappointed that this wasn’t a family trip, but we’re very excited that we’ll be going together to Berlin next month for the Championship meet that Anja qualified for.  This is a huge accomplishment for her as there are swimmers who have been doing this for years who didn’t qualify, and after a very short 5 months she has already done it.  We can’t wait to see how the Champs go!

Yesterday B and Anja left for Italy together.  I have been doing my best to avoid contact with her for the last couple of days which has hurt both of us but it kept her healthy.

Their flight left early and they had to be out of the house by 6am.  When I woke up, Anja was already dressed and ready to go, and I stood across the room talking to her about the trip, making sure she knew to listen and not wander off, to wash her hands frequently and drink lots of water, and to swim her very best.  She listened, nodding, and then got pale and then froze with a strange look on her face.  It was this odd half smile, but not really a happy smile.  I asked her if she was feeling ok and she ever so slightly shook her head.  Of course, this set the Mom Alarm off and I was afraid the germs were catching up with her.

I asked her if she was feeling sick, and again with the ever-so-slight shake of the head.  Bewildered, I asked her firmly what was going on.  And she dropped her head and all the tears fell out of her eyes.

She did not want to go without the whole family being together.

That girl is something.  And it killed me not to scoop her up in my arms and tell her ok, we’ll go with you, to hell with the rest of the passengers that are going to be sick for a week, we’ll go!

They made it out on time, and I heard from them last night that they’d made it safely to Naples and were about to head over to their hotel (they were on the base where the meet was going to be).

Finally today, B called and let me know that Anja slept well and ate a good breakfast and was warming up for the meet and was feeling fine.  What a relief!

I got a call at 11, the one I’d been waiting for, to hear how things were going.  I knew that if she’d just been keeping quiet about feeling ill, I’d know once she started swimming.   B was calling to let me know, and the news was GREAT! Anja qualified for the championship meet in Berlin in her very first event, the 50 meter freestyle!  She won her heat against older girls and came in at 49.34 seconds, just under the qualifying time!  Another call followed just a little while ago with the report that she had finished her second event, the 50 meter backstroke…and had qualified for that, as well!  She took 2.8 seconds off her freestyle and 2.6 seconds off her backstroke!  Personal bests for both! - our goal for her any time she swims.

She has one event to go, the 100 meter freestyle, which is the one she improved 22 seconds on at the last meet.  I will post again as soon as I know!

I have absolutely no hesitation saying that swimming is the best thing we ever could have done for Anja.  She has really found something that is great for her.  She has been working so hard on improving and swims every weekday between her coach and her team.  She even woke up at 4am the other day so she could go in to work with B and get a morning swim in with her coach.  I am so impressed by her dedication.

She has the best coach for her, too - she doesn’t take anything from Anja.  She knows she has a tendency to drift off and start doing her own thing, and let’s just say that 45 minutes of treading water fixed that pretty well.  Really, she responds well to very strict guidance and she most certainly has been getting that - and the return we saw today was incredible.

I was given permission to take photos of the meet as the official unofficial team photographer, which of course meant I got plenty of great shots of Anja.  She swam in 5 events: 50 meter freestyle, 50 meter backstroke, 100 meter freestyle, and 2 relay races.  The relays, well, we’ll just say they didn’t go too well.  But her individual races?  She improved every one of her personal best times.  Including an unbelievable chop off her time in the 100 meter freestyle.  I still can’t even believe how awesome she did.

Getting ready to swim her leg of the relay…waiting…waiting…waiting for her turn to take over.

She cut a second off her backstroke, and made me laugh when I watched her start - she was swimming before she even got in the water.

We’re working on that.

She didn’t win but she did what I wanted her to do the most - she improved her personal best time by a second.

She seemed a bit nervous before her 100 meter freestyle race.  I don’t usually see her focus so hard on anything, but she was in. the. zone.

Swimmers, take your mark…GO!

She had a very strong start and was swimming against some older girls but was in the lead throughout the first 50 meters.

At the turn after the 75 meters, she was taken over by the girl in the next lane.  Well, let me just say I saw a competitive side of Anja come out faster than you could possibly believe.  She was not about to take second place - oh, no.  Her stroke took a whole different turn and she just started flying.

It remained close for the last 25 meters, one of the closest finishes I saw in the meet, and those girls both pushed themselves for the win.

With just one hand’s length, Anja managed to squeeze herself in for the win.  But there was nothing close about her time from her last meet - she cut TWENTY THREE SECONDS off her time!!  I could not have been any prouder of her, it really was a culmination of so much of her hard work in the past months.

HOORAY, Anja!!!

This Halloween, we were soggy and wet - it poured all night last night, all through today, and all the way into trick-or-treating time.  There was one event that they had available to the littlest ones, and Anja just made the age cut-off to be able to attend and showed up in her adorable chef costume.  The one that I bought about 18 months ago and then lost.  Fortunately, I found it about 2 months ago and this time, it fit her perfectly and was so cute on her.

But do I have any pictures of her in it?  No.  I do not.  Instead, I have pictures of her from our night helping at a haunted house.  She was so good in it, too, right up until when she passed out on the couch in the loony bin and slept through the rest of the screaming and chain-saw-massacring and the rattling and the banging and the more screaming.  Maybe it was a self-defense thing to sleep through it all.