I'm slowly making my way through the first posts, reading this as a novel man, compelling stuff!
I know my heart was crushed when Brett had his bad meet (Woodie B. Malone) and then I caught myself saying it with you before his next meet: "please let him do well" and I was very happy when he did do well. Anyway, for you it's well in the past and I'm sure I'll read many more stories like that about your kids, but I wanted to say that I deal with many kids of his type, with ADHD and such, in the field of martial arts and it's always nice to see them succeed or at least have interest in something.
I also realize that we have a very similar way of thinking, re: sleeping out as a reward for training hard. We don't often realize that kids don't get a paycheck for their life. It's those little rewards that are their paychecks, and in a sport like swimming where it's a lot of actual training and sort of little playing, it gets even more important. I compare Matthew to Andrew, our oldest son, who plays hockey. Sure he's got practices, but they are still mostly playing, not always doing laps and laps and laps around the rink...
Back to reading.
FM