Let the Games Begin...

The other day, I realized that it seems like I write the same posts over and over again every year. In part, that's because I put my kids in sports early and life really is sort of a monotonous blur of kids' sporting events...blinding even, like the uniforms of the 2012 Lemon Lemurs...

(Turns out this color is so darned bright that it messes up the exposure on the camera!)

I think about that and wonder if I would do things differently if I had it to do over again. And the answer is an unequivocal 'no'.

I believe in the value of team sports. I believe in knowing how to function as a member of a team, learning how to get along and contribute to the cause, no matter how small your contribution. And I believe in having friends.

One of my very best mom friends is someone I met when our sons played together on Smunch's first soccer team. Our kids didn't have classes together for years after that, even though we've got two in the same grades. We were friends anyway. The boys played soccer and baseball together for years. And now they don't.

Her son still plays soccer and opted to "play down" last year for baseball. My son quit soccer altogether to focus on increasingly competitive baseball.

Still, the boys are friends. And our younger kids are friends. Hers is a boy, so he and Mam will never play sports together, although they are in the same class this year.

Mam is the only girl he'll play with. She's spunky, she's fearless and despite the dresses (and the pink goalie shirt), she's decidedly un-girly.

And my friend H, and I get together regularly, to walk, hike, enjoy coffee, share dinner with the families, revel in some nice wine and fine cheese...

Smunch knows tons of other boys because he's played on so many baseball teams. There's always someone he knows at any baseball event.

The same is true for Mam. And I love that.

Still, as soccer season leads to basketball season, leads to softball/baseball season right into travel ball season...life can get to be a pretty darned monotonous series of taking kids to practices and getting up early every Saturday and sometimes Sunday to go out and sit somewhere, sometimes for hours.

Freezing, roasting, watching closely to make sure I don't blink and miss the whole thing.

Junior Olympics 2012

Smunch is in fourth grade this year. That means a lot of different things, but one of the things that means is that this was the first year he could participate in the Junior Olympics. Junior Olympics is held at the local high school and includes all of the elementary schools in the district. It's primarily a track and field kind of thing, which means running. Smunch does not like running.

In fact, when I asked him if he was going to take part in Junior Olympics his answer was an emphatic 'no'. And then on of the mom's running the even called me to ask why I hadn't ordered Smunch a T-shirt yet. Uh...'cause he doesn't want to do it? She explained that the kids didn't really know what the whole thing was about just yet. So, I caved and bought the shirt. I figured Mam could use it in a couple of years if Smunch didn't change his mind.

 It wasn't more than a week later when Smunch cautiously asked on the way home from school, "Mom, do you think I could still do the Junior Olympics?" I was awfully proud of myself for sensing this eventuality...and thrilled to give an emphatic "Yes".

 Of course, Smunch still didn't want to run. The only thing he wanted to do was the softball throw. But he had to sign up for three things. So his day started with the basketball throw.

I missed this event because I was off managing Mam's softball team. Based on the report I got, he didn't do so well. I believe he hit one shot out of 10. He continued with hurdles, his one running event.

I got to witness that and I was pretty proud of him for coming second in his heat. It wasn't fast enough to make the finals, but I felt like he did well and I hope he did too. Finally, it was on to the softball throw.

He sure looks serious, doesn't he? I suspect he did O.K. in this event, but I they only posted the winners and he wasn't among them. For a competitive little guy who wasn't going to win any awards for his athletic prowess, he had a really good time that day. And it was fun to watch such a big event with so many kids.

It gave me a lot of appreciation for how special the "real" olympics are and why they say it's an honor just to compete. I was proud of Smunch for representing his school, being a good sport and trying his best. In the end, what more can you really ask?

Cosmic Sports Collison

What do baseball, soccer, tennis and football have in common? This date in history. At least that's true for our family.

I was on my way to baseball camp with Smunch this morning while the U.S. played in the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Smunch had been watching on TV before we left, so I turned it on the radio in the car for our drive. There were only a couple of minutes left when we got to the ballpark. The game was tied with no score. If the U.S. didn't score, they were going home. If they did, the got to move on to the round of 16. We sat in the parking lot to listen to the end. Regulation time ended. No score. Then there were 4 minutes of make-up time for all the timeouts they'd had. The radio announcers talk so fast when calling soccer games that Smunch couldn't really keep track of what was going on. And American announcers are apparently too staid to yell GOOOAAAALLLLLLLLL! So he just about missed it when the U.S. kicked a goal with three minutes to spare. What a FUN end to a long game!

On the way home, there was another sports story on the radio. A match at Wimbledon was still going on...after 8.5 hours! Turns out it went on for 10 hours and then they stopped for the evening. It isn't even over yet. It's 58-58 in the 5th set. Ridiculous and kind of unfathomable.

But perhaps the most unfathomable thing happened last. I went to pick Smunch up from baseball camp at 4 o'clock this afternoon. He was tired and happy, as usual. As we left, I saw a familiar-looking guy getting into a shiny, white minivan. Nah, I thought. Couldn't be. But I stopped and told the kids to stop to see who it was backing out of that parking spot right there. Sure enough. I felt stupid standing there gawking at the man, so I waved awkwardly...and he waved back. "Dang, Smunch." I said. "Steve Young just waved to you!"

Sharks!

It's a little weird to blog about things that I wasn't present for. But sometimes it's fun to talk about things one of the kids really enjoyed, so I can remember it even if I can't remember being there...because I wasn't.

Aunt Karen and SPENCER! were here, so when some extremely generous friends (thanks again, They Call Me Mama!) gave us a pair of tickets to see the San Jose Sharks, I knew it was more than likely that Daddy would be going. And, of course, there was no question that Smunch would be going. He'd never been to an ice hockey match before and he'd been waiting for this particular Saturday night for months!

So, I did not go, but I did watch for my boys on television and Daddy thoughtfully sent me a few photos from his iPhone. They had great seats.And sometime before the game, Daddy was fortunate enough to have forward, Jody Shelley, flip him a puck, which immediately became Smunch's most prized possession. (Perhaps it's no coincidence that Smunch's 8th birthday party will be held on Mr. Shelley's 35th birthday...although really, it is.)Apparently, Smunch bounced on his toes for the first two periods of the game, but running purely on excitement and on so little sleep, he became awfully mellow by the last one. He didn't let o of the puck though.He was still psyched about the puck when he got home, wide awake around 10:30 that night.

Daddy really hadn't wanted to take him to the match. The sleep-deprived behavior that afternoon was pretty awful, but I'm so glad they went anyway. You just don't get that kind of opportunity every day!

Hoops

With the kids getting so big, I sometimes feel like we're running out of 'firsts'. Know what I mean? I know there are still first dates and first kisses and all those things ahead of us, but I don't really want to think about those. I'm still in the phase of first steps and first dry nights. (Hey, could I order up some more dry nights already???)

Anyway, now that Smunch is firmly entrenched in the organized sports world, I didn't think we'd have a lot more sporting firsts. But here you go.That's our Mam...playing basketball, a sport her brother never ventured into. In fact, her mother never played hoops either, but "Coach Dan" asked if she might be interested in playing on his Y-ball team. Interested in basketball? Not so much. Interested in playing for Coach Dan? Absolutely! Turns out, the team is about half kids from the Blue Butterflies. After the first game (pictured above) they decided to call themselves the Hoopstars. Cute.Very little girls playing basketball are hilarious, it turns out. There aren't many skills that really transfer from soccer. It's all very different. The girls seemed to have a clue during practice, but I think that all went out the window during the game. One got the impression that they were just excited to have the ball and very excited to be bouncing the ball, regardless of the fact that they weren't moving and weren't near any basket in particular.Mam spent much of her time as pictured above, with her arms in the air, clapping her hands to say "Let's get it going!" or "Pass it to me!" or "Hey look, I'm clapping with my arms in the air. How cool!" It was hard to know, but it was funny. In the end, the only girl on their team to score was one who has an older brother...one who plays basketball. Final score? It was a tie - 6 to 6.

The 8-foot baskets are still mighty high for all of them. There was shooting, but not a lot of successful shooting. And no one seemed quite sure what to do about all those opposing players trying to block them.

For our part, the fans had to sit on the floor, scrunched along the wall. Hardly comfortable or inviting, but close to the action. Maybe too close!

Camping

NO. Not more of that kind of camping. Not yet anyway. After all, we just got back, didn't we? Well, not quite, but I'm definitely not ready to pack that much stuff in the mommymobile again. Getting two kids in there each morning in time to get to camp is enough for a couple of weeks.

This week's camps brought a startling realization. My kids are growing up!

Just a couple of years ago, they were clingy and cried on the first day of camp. In fact, Smunch memorably screamed his way through every day of the first several minutes of gymnastics camp a few years ago. This year was a stark contrast.

First thing Monday morning, I loaded the kids in the van and drove Smunch to his first full-day multi-sport camp. From 9am to 3pm every day, he'd be playing baseball, basketball and flag football.I had to wait around a long time while the camp director waited for other parents to arrive so she could make all of her announcements. In the meantime, the other coaches had gathered a group of kids out on the field and were starting a game. "Why don't you go out and join them?" I asked Smunch. He set his bag down and took off without a glance back at me.

The city somehow totally over-enrolled this camp, so they had 50 kids instead of 35. Smunch, at 7, was at the very bottom of the age range and he's still a small guy on top of that. Scoring in basketball is a major accomplishment for him with these hoops, but do you think it made any difference?Nope.

They were long days, but he had a great time and came home exhausted and somewhat grumpy. Ready to do nothing..aka watching baseball replays on the computer ad nauseum...for a couple of hours.My next stop each morning was at Mam's nature camp. I tried without success to get Smunch interested in doing this camp too. "No, Mom," he insisted. "I'm not interested in NATURE. I'm interested in SPORTS!" O.K., fine. At least I've got one kid who likes a well-balanced assortment of camps.She played games, made necklaces, painted rocks, met animals in the petting zoo, tie dyed a T-shirt and watched a wildlife presentation that included a golden eagle, a kestrel, a porcupine and some kind of large cat that I couldn't get a straight answer on. It had spots, I gather. She got to have all that fun in this pretty little spot that you'd never guess is just blocks from the local downtown.She was quite literally a happy camper. She didn't know a single other kid there, but it didn't matter. She ran to join her group the minute we got there and made another new best friend. These last couple of photos are from her performance in the last day's sing-a-long. We've got another busy camp week coming right up. I really need to make sure I don't schedule us for so much stuff next year. I hope they feel like they had a crazy fun summer and not just a crazy one!

A change of opinion

Some of you may remember my last experience with sending Smunch to camp. It was painful. It was so painful, in fact, that I didn't send him to camp at all last summer. The mere mention of the word "camp" had him saying "NO!!" while the 'puh' was still on my lips. It was bad.

Somehow, I convinced him that a sports camp might be right up his alley. In fact, I didn't really have to do any convincing at all. He really wanted to go. And it turned out that a few of his friends were going to the same camp. It included soccer, baseball and basketball. He's all over all those sports.

After his second day at this camp, I picked him up and unprompted he said, "I just LOVE this camp!"And clearly he did! Not only that, but he managed not to lose his brand new "Rec Specs" that I just paid a fortune for.

This experience was a success on so many levels, it's just crazy. Too bad I didn't just sign him up right at the beginning of the summer and get him interested in other camps later on!

Shared Passion

Every morning, my kindergartner is the first one out the garage to get the paper...usually before Daddy and I are out of bed. He can't wait to see the Sports section. Lately, Smunch has been waking me up by running in and announcing the scores of the previous day's games. And, no, it doesn't matter which sport makes the news. Whatever's there will do. Tonight, he had me look up the results of the NCAA Divison I Softball World Series. This summer ought to be fun. I wonder how many Olympic sports he can follow at once!

Here he is poring over his favorite section with his buddy Luke, who might be as interested as he is, but it's hard to believe.

Have I mentioned that he's a bigger sports fan than anyone in our house? I might hazard a guess that he's a bigger fan than anyone on either side of the family, even...although Grandpa runs a close second...

She's So Shy

Mam has largely recovered from her ear infection. Back to sleeping through the night and enjoying time away from Mommy. Thank goodness. Of course, Typhoid Mam gave her disease to both Daddy and me, so I haven't been quite up to par this week.

On Wednesday, in the wake of my newfound (well, not really) inability to get motivated to cook, we went on over to our favorite downtown pizza spot for dinner. Daddy and I love this place. Mam professes not to like it, but always eats dinner, which is an improvement over eating at home. Smunch loves it because they always have sports on the TVs in there. Wednesday's match-up was college basketball between Texas Tech and Kansas State. And yeah, I had to look up the final score for him the next day. It's that important.

Anyway, both kids know that this pizza place includes a tiny glass-fronted freezer full of ice cream sandwiches. They both did a great job of eating dinner and they also know they can have an ice cream sandwich if they do. Smunch was still eating (and glued to the TV) when Mam declared herself done, walked over to our side of the table and loudly announced

"I want an ice cream sandwich!"

shortly followed by:

"I want the money!"

Yikes. Trying not to laugh, Daddy handed her $5 to take up to the counter. Naturally, she dragged her big brother with her and made him order, which was no mean feat since he couldn't get the first word (which was 'two') out due to the stuttering. So, he stood there in front of the puzzled, but gamely patient clerk, struggling with the 'T' until the whole sentence came tumbling out..."Ttttttttwo! Ice cream sandwiches, please" (OMG, he was totally polite!).
I wonder how long it's going to be before he realizes his sister is not too shy to demand money and doesn't stutter, so should be forced to order the ice cream for him, not the other way around!