Saturday, January 10, 2009

And so the season begins...

Alex and Michael had this season's first basketball game today. It was a bit of a humbling fun experience, just like last year. Remember the Michael Dimension? I think he may have focused a bit better today, but...

...he still covered his ears in anticipation of the buzzer for the countdown of the last minute of each 6 minute period,


...he was still goofy on the sidelines,

...and he crashed to the floor on a couple of occasions for no particular reason.

Although he does seem to have so much fun, we plan to work with him on focusing and being a bit more aggressive because the other players are like mini-Michael Jordans, and he needs to keep up. My husband commented on the fact that if he just committed to the game a bit of the aggression with which he pummels his brother, he'd be able to keep up with his teammates.

As for Alex, she started out an all-star: She scored the first basket and was keeping the team afloat. But then she apparently hurt her back because she, by choice, sat out for the last 4 1/2 game periods. Later as I watched her bounce effortlessly and painlessly about the house, I was torn between my desire to nurture her and a desire to somehow make her tougher. For some reason, I settled for sharing with her the heroic tale of Kerri Strugg helping her team win gold by struggling through a vault on a twisted ankle. She gave me a blank stare. At any rate, we're going to do a lot of stretching this week so her back is in tip top shape for her game on Saturday.

5 comments:

@nnie said...

wait... those are MY pics! I took them today when our boy and girl wore their Green and White uniforms in their first Upward games!

I agree - there is a fine line for parents when guiding and "coaching" their kiddos... on one hand I want to make sure my kids know that as long as they try their hardest, then I'm proud of them. On the other hand, I want to scream, "get that ball!!!!! grab it!!! TAKE IT AND SCORE!!!!"

ha! bball can make me crazy sometimes.

thanks for playing the alphabet game! I have a letter for you... it is T. I can't wait to see your list!

@nnie said...

by the way, my husband shops for me too!!! and I love it. Or he forces me to go and picks out stuff for me to try on. It's great!!! Cause I really don't like to shop. It's just not fun for me. I think something must be wrong with me... some kind of chromosonal defect, but then i find a perfectly wonderful woman like yourself and I feel better! Do we need a support group? ha!

Courtney said...

Love the basketball "hat". LOL

CrossView said...

No one ever warned me in advance of how hard those character building issues would be... LOL!

Shouldn't the cuteness in uniform aspect count??!!

mareseatoats said...

We had our first game this weekend too. It was a lot of fun but left me wondering some of the same things. What is it that makes them that goofy? My dear boy sounds an awful lot like yours. He spent more time on the floor than on his feet and he was just plain goofy! My girl hung in there but she's just plain nice. She doesn't want to block (even though she's the tallest kid on her team) because it isn't nice. Oh boy. I have to bite my tongue not to yell from the sidelines!