Last swim meet in Rome

It was an earlier morning than we had wanted. Charlotte was swimming in the last meet of her season -- and her last in Rome. We were up early getting her breakfast and making snacks and drinks for her to take along. Josh dropped Charlotte off at Foro Italico for warm-ups; we would turn up later to cheer for her.

In the meantime, we had breakfast outside with Olivia and Avery, and then I went to the market. Charlotte called to say she had forgotten her tessera and could we please bring it. Also, a girl-scout friend of hers went to the meet, along with her grandmother, to route for Charlotte. As a result, Josh and I took Olivia and Avery to the meet much earlier than we would have. We arrived at 10:45am and Charlotte didn't swim until after noon. It was a very hot day; we did the best we could to stay in the shade, but the little kids were irritated. To top it all off, Charlotte didn't have a good swim. She swam the 200 Breast in a time 3 seconds slower than she'd done at the Spoleto meet two weeks ago. She was disappointed.

We invited Charlotte's friend, Flavia, and her grandmother over for an impromptu lunch. They are such nice people, and it was very kind of them to take an interest in Charlotte spend all morning at the meet waiting to see her race. After lunch, while everyone rested, I started the arduous task of packing by going through all the kids' toys and games, and stuff from school. Josh brought the boxes upstairs from the cantina. We are officially moving.

We returned to Foro Italico in the evening to see Charlotte swim her second race: the 100 Breast. She had been there since 4pm, but the meet had been delayed due to thunderstorms. Shortly after we arrived, it began raining again. Fortunately, this time, Olivia and Avery stayed home with Morris. In fact, due to the delay in the meet, Morris had already cooked dinner for all of us, and we ate in the kitchen before leaving. The meet directors allowed the event that was swimming to be concluded. But just before Charlotte's event, they decided to cancel the rest of the evening. It was communicated that they would make up the two remaining events tomorrow. So we drove home. Charlotte was very frustrated having spent five hours at the pool this afternoon, without getting to swim her race.

Josh and I had planned to go out for our "last dinner" in Rome. But due to the rain (and also the temperature had dropped 20 degrees), and seeing that we'd already eaten, we decided to stay in. I felt a little depressed; it had been a lost day. Olivia and Avery were short-changed because we didn't do anything of interest to them at all; I didn't get any packing done; over the course of the entire day, Charlotte had swum only one event, and poorly. And then the evening was scuttled due to weather. It was a bummer all around.

Avery had had a long nap and wasn't tired for bed. Olivia was bothered by her loose tooth that was hanging by a thread. Everyone was grumpy for one reason or another. Well, there's always tomorrow.