Sharks and Monkeys

I think my new part-time job must be cutting into all that time I used to spend blogging. It's a good gig and all, but gosh, I did have some other ideas for things to do with my free time and those things just aren't working out!

School started with a bang...like the starting gun at the beginning of a race. I don't dare blink or 1st grade will be over again and our first round of 3rd grade will be too. Mam seems to be enjoying all the advantages of being a 1st grader. Smunch? He was settled in before he even sat down, I suspect. Several times lately, I've heard him tell someone, "I have, like, the nicest teacher in the whole school." And he does.

But as is now tradition in our household, the start of school is just the harbinger for the start of soccer season. This year, Mam scored fluorescent orange as a team color. And Smuch is clad in "silver"...still just a nice word for grey.So far, it's promising to be a pretty different year than last year. Soccer has never really been Smunch's sport. He enjoys it and he chose to play soccer over playing "fall ball", but he's hardly a star. In his first game with the Silver Sharks, he got tired and asked to come out of the game after the first quarter. Ugh!But he happily celebrated goals with the team's star player. Then he got kicked in the foot...hard. Out for another quarter. He seemed O.K. later. He seemed fine until he played soccer again. It's a little hard to believe it's not just a mental problem. I'm hoping he makes it through a few more quarters this weekend.

The blinding orange team is the Orange Super Monkeys (love that!). At Mam's age, they're still mostly playing beehive ball.But they're cute. Mam is nothing like the soccer player she was last year, however. Her fearless fiestiness has been replaced by hang-back-and-watch-it-ness...although she did score a goal in her second outing. There've only been two games, so maybe last year's soccer star will re-emerge yet.

Can you tell I'm kinda missing baseball season?