Chance can't hear the cheers, but we yell encouragement anyway

Funny thing about Chance being on the swim team. Even though he can't hear us cheer, we cheer him on just as loud as we do his brother. It just seems wrong to cheer enthusiastically for his brother and then stand silently by as Chance swims. We adore both of them and want them both to know that they have fans in the stands!
I think Chance can feel our vibes of encouragement even if he doesn't hear us yelling out his name or telling him things like,"Come on, bring her on home!"

I wonder what it is like to swim with out hearing all of the voices and noise bouncing around? Sometimes those swimming event places are just plain loud. For other swimmers the noise is part of the race.
Chance's race is blissfully quiet. Or is it blissful? He doesn't know any different and it seems that you could concentrate on your strokes with out having to wonder,"What did I just hear? Did they say Dan was winning?"

Hmmmmm. To be a part of Chance's world for a minute would be really interesting.
In the mean time, we continue to give a shout out,"Go Chance!"

The missed start

Chance is flourishing being on the city swim team. He takes this endevour very seriously checking his times from previous swim meets and trying to improve. Yesterday during the meet here at our home pool, Chance was favored to win the freestyle based on times from the last meet. Chance was ready. And excited. The boys were all lined up in their lanes at the end of the pool waiting in anticipation for the buzzer to sound telling them it was time to start.
Except Chance who was waiting for the designated person to pull their arm down so he would know it was time to start seeing as how the buzzer could sound all night and day and Chance would still not know it was time to go.

The problem is, the person Chance was supposed to watch, was not standing in a good place for Chance to see them. In order to see their arm, Chance had to crane his neck at a weird angle and therefore was not be in a good position to start a competitive race. So, he came in 4th place. Which is still really good, but not where he wanted to be. Once he got off, he swam hard and made up time, just not enough to win.

Chance's dad decided that he would volunteer to be the person Chance watches next time as he will be much more aware of how important his location is to Chance's ability to start the race in good position and on time.

We'll have to be aware of this little glitch each time the hosting cities don't have the flashing light and rely on a person to tell Chance when it is time to go.