Being a Kid

I was driving O to school the other day and she told me a story. "Hey Dad" she started, "doesn't this sound fun?" She then went on to tell me that her and two friends, a few months ago, decided to hold a contest during language arts class, which is an hour an twenty minutes long. The contest was to see who could hold their feet off the ground the longest during class. O said as the class wore on, she was the only one still holding her feet up, so the other two girls told her they would sharpen her pencil if needed, or go up and get her extra paper for her so she could make it to the end of class. She said when the bell rang and she had made it to the end, the three of them were so excited.

I told her that did sound like a lot of fun, because it's exactly the kind of thing I would do, even today!

Motivation

I haven't experienced a lot of new things specific to my role as the stay at home parent lately, or at least it seems that way. But as the kids have gotten a little older, I'm now learning on the job again.

The Tornado is playing baseball, and as you can tell by the picture, his focus is sporadic. That's fine, he's 6, and maybe baseball isn't his thing, who knows, maybe it is, just not yet. I just want him to have fun.

The girls are a little older, and seem to enjoy playing basketball. O is a worker, she'll do what you tell her. But, she always leaves something in the tank. She never really goes full throttle, for whatever reason.Don't know if she's scared of getting hurt, or if it's something else. But she holds herself back - and it seems like that's true in other areas of her life. She has great enthusiasm for things, but almost sabotages herself at times. How do you get someone to go to the wall every time she competes in something?

The Bear is totally different. Her intensity and level of determination, I can't imagine many 10/11 years olds equalling her in this regard. Or people of any age for that matter. When she puts her mind to something, she is singularly focused, and almost always reaches her goal. But, like me, if she can't see the goal, she just can't get the engines going at all. So how do show her the it's the little steps along the way that gets you to the top of the mountain? Is she too young to be able to see that? Is she not as interested as she says she is in this particular mountain?

At the moment, I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I don't know where the line of pushing versus letting them go their own way is. I said to the CEO tonight, it seems like I've been trying to straddle that line - and that they right way to do it is to be on one side of the line or the other. Either drive them to greatness, and hope it works out, or let them get there themselves. After thinking and talking it through in my mind, I guess I'm leaning towards letting them get there themselves.

I went to bed last night and while thinking, realized something that is at the heart of what's bothering me about this I think. When the girls were younger, like the Tornado still is, they always asked me questions. How to do this, what does that mean, where is such and such. O still looks for advice, she still seeks approval. But the Bear really doesn't, at least not vocally. She wants me to watch every move she makes, but she's just so independent. She's always been that way, but her youth still required her to ask for input. Now that she's almost 11, she seems to have decided she needs my input less. That's very hard for me. She wants me to be interested, but not contribute, or at least that's how it feels, and that's difficult and confusing, seeing how I've been there contributing for so many years. I want her to be strong and independent, that will obviously serve her well as she gets older. But I still want her to need her Dad. It's scary thinking that she's already getting to the point where she thinks she doesn't.

I guess I'll keep learning how to deal with these things as we go.

Something New

I was in the driveway talking to a friend yesterday, and a spider flew down from a tree, I guess. She shot a strand of silk to try to latch onto a car parked in the driveway. Then another strand of silk, and she just kind of floated through the air. I had never seen that before, and it was very peaceful and very cool. It's fun to see something new :)

State Champs!

O and the Bear traveled up to Orlando on March 17th to compete in the Knights of Columbus state free throw championship.

At the regional level, Bear went first in her age group, missed two of the first three, then made 21 of the last 22. She won comfortably, and moved onto the state level.

O went last in her age group, and one of the girls before her hit 15 of her first 16. O was getting nervous and so I told her to look away and talk to someone. The girl only made 3 of her last nine, but still posted an 18, which is pretty solid. O didn't know the number to beat, but she knew she had to make quite a few. She started off a little shaky, missing all three of her warmups. Then she got hot - and ended up making 22.

We got to Orlando, and Bear went first again, and her group went first. She made 21 of the first 22, and basically put the rest of the kids out of the competition. She made 22 in the end, and became the state champ!

O went first in her group too, and made 18. Not her best, but a solid number. She was still in the lead until the final girl went. The girl was 13 for 15, and looked like she was going to win. She missed one, then another, and you could see the frustration building. She ended up making only 17, and O was a champ too!

The two girls had shot over 10,000 free throws in the 3 months leading up to the competition. They had worked very hard, and I was very proud of how they made the effort to put their best foot forward. And they were rewarded - way to go girls!

Spring Break 2012

The kids spring break just wrapped up, and what a great break it was! I'm not sure why, maybe it was just the weather being a little hotter than normal, but it felt like summer vacation.

They had 7 days off from school, plus the 4 weekend days mixed in there, so they were home for 11 days in a row. It was really nice having them at home for the extended period of time.

We did lots of things during the break. We went to the beach several times, sometimes with just the family, sometimes with friends, sometimes with Grandma and Grandpa. More than once we saw dolphins, we even saw a manatee swimming right up close to the shore! We collected lots of shells, played football, threw the woboba, built castles, you name it. The Tornado was playing with J, the son of one of my closest friends, they interacted by saying "How old are you? What's your name? Let's build a sand castle".

We went to a Miracle game with some friends, and had a lot of fun on a beautiful night. The Tornado and his best buddy each got to play a contest on the field where they roll hula hoops around the field. They both got a baseball for their efforts! O and one of her friends played Name That Tune in front of the whole stadium and each won a restaurant gift card. The Bear had a player toss her a ball, so everyone went home happy.

We rode bikes, took some walks, ate together a lot, played some board games and went to the Tornado's game together. All in all, we got to spend a lot of time together as a family, and that's what makes it a great vacation!

But how long??

On O's birthday we were talking about her going to college in just a few short years. Well, yesterday I was hugging the Tornado and asked him if he was going to live at home forever.

He responded in starts and stops, trying to explain that he was going to leave the house at the same age the Big O was going to leave the house for college. He wasn't able to get that point out clearly, so finally he just smiled, hugged me back and said "I'm gonna be here a long time!"

And really, that's all I wanted to hear :)

Future

The Bear joined a travel team this spring, after she played very well on her school team and in the rec league. The team is a group of outstanding young players, at least 10 really solid kids.

As I write this, the season has been a little up and down. The team is doing well, playing in 3 tournaments so far, winning one and coming in 2nd the other two. We've lost 4 times to the same team, and will need to get past them to win the state title.

As for Bear, she started about half the games, but her playing time has diminished in the more competitive games as the season as gone on. There are two other point guards on the team, so competition for time is pretty intense. We still have 5 tournaments, so there is time for her to earn more if she plays well. Either way, it's been a good experience for her. She knows she has to play hard all the time, she knows there are other good players out there. She's met some nice kids, and played against some really difficult teams/players from all over the southeast.

She's a driven and determined kid, and if she keeps working she'll reach the goals she has set for herself and this will be a good stepping stone for getting there.

Time is Flying

My mother emailed the other day and asked why I hadn't written since the beginning of the school year.

The short answer - I don't know why. I kept a list of things I wanted to write about, but never put them down here on the blog.

The longer answer probably lies somewhere in the answer I gave my mother - that every time I write about things happening, it kind of bums me out. It gets me a little down to think about how quickly the kids are growing, how soon they will be on their own. And really, are they going to be interested in reading this stuff? Maybe they will, maybe they won't - so that kind of bums me out as well.

Having said that, I'm going to effort, again, to document more of their and our history as it happens. I'll begin with this entry.

The Big O turned 13 last week, a real live teenager living in my house. She's a wonderful young lady, and I wrote her a little letter telling all the things that make her wonderful. She's recently been inducted to the National Junior Honor Society, Florida Young Scholars, took the ACT, won the Florida Free Throw state championship, and on a daily basis does things to serve and help others. She has typical 13 year old troubles, such as issues with friends, or forgetfulness at home, but she almost always handles those issues with toughness and grace. She is an optimist that believes she can do anything, and I believe she's right!