Waterpolo, TLC and MTV

Water polo season is finally over and boy is that a blessing in it's self. I love coaching water polo and I love my team but being pregnant and spending 12-14 hours on a pool deck on weekends, has literally turned me into a walking zombie.
Just for example this is what October looked like for me:
Oct. 5-6 I spent the whole weekend in Napa. On Friday I was up at 4:45am and didn't get home until 8:00pm. Then  I repeated that same schedule on Saturday the 6th.
Oct. 12-13- I spent the whole weekend in Modesto/Turlock/Ripon. That was nicer because I got to see my families, but I still was at the pool deck a lot of the day on Friday and Saturday.
Oct. 19-20- I spent Friday in Turlock at Pitman watching the Oak Ridge varsity boys and my little brother's polo team. Saturday I spent the whole day in Davis from 10am-8pm
Oct 26-27- We had our final JV girls tournament at Oak Ridge. It was great that it was only 20 minutes from our house, but I needed to be there the whole time since it was my tournament. I spent from 5:45am-7:45pm at the pool all day on both Friday and Saturday.
Not to mention, we have a 2.5 hour practice everyday Monday-Thursday plus about 6 games in various places from Stockton to Sacramento during the month of October.

IT WAS BUSY! AND IT WORE ME OUT!
I did this exact schedule last year and I was still working full time at the juvenile hall/group home and I wasn't even close to as exhausted as I am this morning. Plus, tournaments we're an excuse for me to get away from my own classroom :)

I think the lowest point was when at the Napa tournament I went to my car and took a two hour nap in the back of my Subaru between one of our games. If I hadn't, I seriously don't think I would of made it home.

With all of that though, I would still do it year after year because the improvement that my teams show from the beginning to end is absolutely amazing. It makes me know that I have got to be doing something right in regards to coaching.
My team this year went from the first two weeks of practice literally teaching kids how to breaststroke kick and egg beater to actually looking like a team that can play and understand water polo. 6 of the 12 girls on the team had also never really swam before! Yikes!
The number of comments I have gotten about how much they improved makes it all worth it.

These were taken on October 5th at our first tournament in the month of October:

Look at that defense. To go from not knowing how to egg beater to this?
Pure Awesomeness!

Our goalie this year volunteered for the position....and look at her now!

This was taken at the beginning of the season. So obviously I am a lot larger now...
That coaching shirt doesn't even fit my belly.
I'm going to try find some of me coaching with my belly showing.
I was still 4.5 months pregnant when this was taken.

Along with water polo being over today, I will be doing nothing but watching television, reading and sleeping today. I think I more than deserve it. Recently I have taken an interest in watching pregnancy shows and women giving birth. It makes me feel better knowing that if they can do it I can do it. I have even reserved my self to watching the always horrible 16 and pregnant. When I get done watching, it makes me feel good knowing that well, "Hell if this 15-17 year old can push that sucker out or go through a C section well then by all means I can." It also makes me feel very, very responsible.
I wish I could get paid what they do though to have my pregnancy and birth on camera....I don't think though that 24 & pregnant has the same ring to it, nor is as entertaining.

Julia