Pre-March Madness...

Round 1 of 4th grade basketball playoffs found me on the sideline with a grin on my face for most of the game. The Hub was super excited about the very productive practice that was held the night before. He was all jazzed up, feeling good, sure that his 8th ranked team would take home a win against the 9th ranked opponent. So there I was on the side, grinning for most of the game. Amazingly the scoreboard was a simple 9-3 at the half, and The Hub's girls were winning. The score remained surprisingly low, since both teams just couldn't seem to get their shots off.

The girls are smiling, big cheesy smiles with each good play they executed. There The Hub was from the bench saying "good job. Now wipe the smile off your face and get back to work!" As we wrapped up the 3rd period we still had the lead with a nice 11-3 sitting on the board. My sweet Bball Girl took her 4th personal foul way too easily. Despite her dad's screams from the side to back up and just let the opponent make the layup, BBall Girl wasn't having it. There she was charging in, and slam! Catching the foul. Now at the risk of fouling out for the game, we are in the 4th period and The Hub calls a time out. From the opposite of the gym I could see The Hub telling her "stay away from that girl. DO NOT foul out of this game!" Bball Chick shook her head yes. She's got the game plan under control.

We start the 4th quarter and our defense lets the other team catch up. The score is 11-9 and what do you think happens? Bball Chick fouls out. It could have happened in slow motion; we all saw it coming. There she was racing down the court towards the girl with the ball - not her man to defend, mind you - and sure enough charged right at her. The ball was NOT going to go anywhere near the net apparently. So there you go, Bball Girl has fouled out of her first game. Not what the team needed with 40 seconds on the clock and a one basket game. Gulp. Needless to say the grin on my face has turned into more of a stricken look. I'm starting to feel sick and my blood pressure is begging me to just go sit in the car.

The opposing team scores a way-too-easy basket and the score is tied. Overtime it is. Bball Girl is still on the sidelines, looking quite distraught I might add. Two minutes of overtime and we score in the first 30 seconds. Thank goodness. Now if we can just keep them still. Not to be. They answer with a bucket of their own and we are at 13-13. My goodness. I really can't take this kind of pressure. We get all the way down to 6 seconds on the clock and one of our players makes a jumper from way too far away. She misses. They get the ball, dribble down, there's a pass to a chick right under the basket. She shoots, she misses and she shoots again. At the buzzer she scores the game winning basket to end it 13-15. Unbelievable.

I can't wrap up this update without giving a shout out to Black #4. Last year she and Bball Girl were on the same team and they were a dynamic force. She's tall and stocky and plays tough. She would be the girl with the ball that little old Bball Girl was trying to knock off, only to find herself fouled out of the game. When these two get to high school basketball they will be a force to be reckoned with.

But here we are at the buzzer, poor Bball Girl was devastated. I quickly rallied around her to remind her it's just one season of basketball and there will be many more. And, good news (I hope) is the losing team plays again on Saturday against whoever loses the late game playing after us. The look on her face was priceless. "Really mom? I should be happy about that? Loser plays loser. Wow..." I decided to let her have her moment of supreme sadness. I was in shock myself. And The Hub? Well, I knew we were going to have a hard time putting this one to bed. He didn't sleep at all last night, tossed and turned, amidst nightmares of bad passes, missed jumpers and wild layups. This morning again we had to relive the play-by-play of his frustrations and what went wrong. He finally wrapped it up by saying his health couldn't take all this roller coaster riding. "That's it for me," he says, "no more coaching." Yea right. Youngest starts football in August.

That's A Wrap...

Perhaps you have noticed I haven't blogged much about this winter season of basketball for my darling Bball Chick and my delightful The Hub. It's been an adventurous season, at times even difficult to watch the games. Through closed fingers, clenched teeth and frustrated eyeballs, I peered at the games, Saturday after Saturday, flinching and ever-hopeful that the girls would pull out a win. At this age, the proper thing to do is say they are learning, and that it is all about having fun, and they grow with age. I can say all that, but I would also have to say that I'm certain my blood pressure skyrockets with each game. I'm also certain I have reached the unwanted status of "that parent." You know, the one who sits on the side, cheering very loudly, expressing her "expert" opinion to the team as they play, and most delightfully, challenges the refs on their calls. I know, I'm not proud. To make matters worse, I've never played basketball. Yet, I don't really seem to care.

This has been a tough season. The last regular game was played on Saturday, giving this team a 2-9 record. Yup, this was a rough one. We started out so well; I was so sure this was going to be a dynamic season. Turns out, not so much. My poor Bball Girl spent most of her games in tears. Tears, I tell ya. Her mother's defense of her says the girl plays with tremendous heart. She's aggressive on defensive, fast as lightning and a powerful point guard. Problem is, when they are losing, sometimes losing badly, that ole' girl doesn't take it so well.

Our lowlight of the season would have to be the game where the team was losing pretty badly in the 3rd period. As the ref blows the whistle for some random call, The Hub offers some constructive coaching from the sidelines. That's his job, right? As she takes it upon herself to argue (ARGUE!) back with her coach-dad from the middle of the court, he tells her to get it together or she will sit out the final period. Yes, friends. All of this happened as the gym was silent. Oh, goodness. Could I just shrink into disappearance from embarrassment? The worst of it would have to be Bball Girl's final remark: "Just take me out now, then!" Oh, wow. I thought I was embarrassed before, now I want to yank the girl myself. Utterly embarrassing. Thankfully those parents had the good graces to wait to talk about us until they got in their cars after the game was over. Somehow I forgot to thank them for that. The Hub called a time out and tried to regroup. Let's just say that was not a fun ride home. 4th grade house league basketball rules prevent a coach from pulling a player during a period for any reason other than injury. Although I am sure The Hub could think of some injuries he might like to cause (kidding!), she had no injury. An injury to her common sense and home training, perhaps.

You know that I spent the next week preaching to her about good sportsmanship, and mostly declaring to her she has got to get her emotional game together. The poor girl was in tears in the 2nd half of almost every game. I get her frustration, myself feeling the same from the sidelines. She was the team's lead shooter and is a good basketball player. Her team, as a whole, really, just not so great. That interprets to her running down opposing players, sometimes bulldozing them, in an effort to stop the run. Oh, boy. Soccer Chick and I would sit on the sidelines shaking our head. I, personally, would not want to face that against me on the court. Her face gets so serious, and she looks downright mean. Scary, in fact. About that time, I would slowly raise my hand to cover my face. I don't even want to see what's coming. She charges directly for a player, and if the team is losing badly, and she's frustrated enough, she didn't even care if she took a flagrant foul or if the player wasn't even hers to cover. Oh, sigh. She'll be a beast when she gets to high school ball. But for those little 4th grade girls she was their nightmare.

Thankfully, this final game this past weekend Bball Girl kept her stuff together. I couldn't tell her enough how proud I was. Perhaps I was just happy my prayers of "please do not let her embarrass me with those tears flying all over the place...AGAIN..." was what was answered. What I was thinking was let's please not give these parents another occasion to wonder if all the girls does is cry. Bless, that girl, she is such a kind soul. She is emotional; she's in-touch with her emotions. She feels things strongly and it shows. She didn't handle losing too well. Tomorrow night, this same team faces round 1 of the playoffs. Will they win? It's likely. They are ranked 8th out of 10 teams, and are facing the 9th ranked team. If they win...well, then they face the 1st ranked team on Saturday. I'm shaking my head, already. Ya'll pray for me.

The most exciting news would be that for the spring season she has decided to run track. I'm so excited for this! She's super fast. She gets that from her mama. Although the people in my life don't believe that, knowing me now, I desperately try to convince them that I was super-fast in my youth. I didn't use it, so I got to lose it. But once upon a time, a long 30-something years ago, this gal could run...and she could dance, and... I keep trying to convince my family of these many spectacular talents I possessed, and how I have delightfully passed them on to my incredibly athletic and talented children, and I just don't get why they insist on doubting me so!

Fear The Clip...It's A Shocker...

Everyone who knows Youngest knows he is an explorer. He's got that same confidence, boldness and exploring nature like I told you about in my previous blog. Like his daddy, he's not afraid to try new things and take big risks. Problem is the boy is 6. It's his parents job to make sure that he is kept safe and that little engineering mind of his that wants to try new inventions and create fun projects is moving in a way that doesn't bring him, his family or our home any harm.

If this is the goal of his parents, we might have failed last night. I am shaking my head at this boy. Following an evening of bible study with our church's small group this little fella went upstairs to get in his pajamas and his task was to brush his teeth. A few minutes later the last of our friends departs the house and I head up to check on things. I find Youngest on his bed sobbing uncontrollably. With two big sisters to contend with, this is not at all unusual, so no red flag here. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he didn't want to tell me because he knew I would be mad. Okay, now the red flag is flying. A little afraid to continue this conversation, I encouraged him to tell me what's up. Between sobs and humongous tears he tells me that he had something that he got from school that he took into the bathroom and stuck it in the "place where tvs go." Um. What? Eventually I figured out he was talking about the electric socket. Gulp. When the "fireworks" shot out at him it scared the child out of his little 6 year old mind and he ran for cover. At this point between the sobs he is telling me that he loves this house and he doesn't want to do anything to ruin it.

Oh, youngest. I take him squarely by the shoulders and make him show me what he used. He painfully hands me the metal part of a binder clip, with the plastic clip removed. The ends are seared from the electric shock. Okay, first of all. Where did he get this from? If I had to guess I would say he pocketed the binder clip and disposed of the clip. I've seen the boy work over a paperclip. Pretty much anything that can be used as part of an on-going project or can be reshaped and turned into something else is fair game with this guy. He's a smart cookie. As the responsible parent I am, I lectured him very sternly and with my most serious voice about he could have seriously hurt himself. He could have done serious damage to our house. More out of control sobbing ensued as his little body shook, racked with guilt and pleas of "I LOVE this house mommy." Talk about a wake up call. This little explorer got not only a science lesson but a serious shaking in his pajama pants.

I'm confident that between his dad and I lighting into him over this one, and the scare that those sparks gave him, he has learned his lesson. As we hustled him into bed he wanted to show me his foot where one of the sparks "almost hit his toe." Okay, that didn't happen, but in his dramatic way of expressing things he was confident that he was going to die. In the 14 years that Oldest has lived in my home I have never had to contend with his dangerous explorations. The worst he had was a broken ankle from a sledding injury. Remind me to fuss at him, his soft-spoken, sweet -boy nature in no way prepared me for Youngest's antics.

Finally, I got that guy settled down and in the bed. He insisted on whimpering uncontrollably. I'm convinced the majority of this was for my benefit. He is just that smart. He would want to make sure mama thought he was thoroughly remorseful. In his most pitiful voice, as I departed from his room, he says: "oh, mom. I really wish Oldest were home from college right now. If he were here he would help me get through this." This, thankfully, was a good result to an obviously needed lesson. Life is just that way. There are many times we do something really, really stupid and the result scares the pants off of us. Sometimes we need that huge scare to simmer us down and slow our roll. Youngest got just that lesson, and sometimes we need that too. God will allow us to keep on going, pushing the limit and testing our fate for damaging results. Then He will allow something to happen that reminds us there are some things that we just don't do.

Thank goodness that Youngest is safe and sound. Thank goodness that God was watching over him, the same as He watches over us. Since my little guy might have suffered a setback but is likely not anywhere near finished his explorations and risk taking in life, I'm going to be praying even harder that God's eyes would be on him even more. And if any of ya'll see him, you watch him too. He's too smart for his own good.

Service Road Of Life...

Ya'll know about those service roads out here on the streets, don't ya? They are all over our NOVA roads. I would think they are part of a conspiracy by some upper group, trying to keep us at the top of the America's Craziest Traffic list, but I've seen these roads in other parts of the country as well. Some clever engineer thought this would ease up traffic for those main streamers just trying to get to where they are trying to get to and not needing to slow down for the turning folks. That's the idea, right?

Not so for The Hub. I'm gonna call him a natural rule breaker. From his youngin' years I know this fella has had a thing for causing some dust to stir. Driving in a car is no exception. Often, at get-off-from-work time I travel a road that is a long stretch of inching along, stoplight to stoplight, and very little acceleration. I've come to accept that this 16 miles from office to my door will take me an hour to an hour and a half. Welcome to NOVA life.

Yesterday, The Hub happened to pick me up at said job of mine. As soon as we hit our long stretch, he veered right and hit the service road. Much to my horror. What kind of person does such a thing? He knows full well that he won't be turning right for at least 10 miles. So he's really going to float all the way down this service road, as far as his pretty little heart can go, whizzing past all these cars on our left at a standstill? Yup, that's exactly what he intended to do.

He and I had quite the chuckle as he approached each stop sign on our service road travels and debated, with his mind, and for a few seconds with the steering wheel, as to whether to dive back into traffic or risk it and go a couple of blocks more. You should know that the man has no idea where the service road ends exactly. And wouldn't that be something, to go through all that to beat traffic, only to get stuck somewhere and have to backtrack.

As I sat in the seat quite amused, and horrified at the same time, he remarked to me that he knew this was something I would never do. Of course not, I told him. I would be in that traffic line like everyone else. Because that's the right thing to do. How do we define right? Well, if I know I'm not turning right I'm not coasting down the service road, pretending I'll eventually be turning right, just to skip all that traffic. I am not a sacrifice everyone else to get ahead kind of girl. The Hub, on the other hand, didn't even hesitate. No way he was sitting in that long line, he said. We spent the next 15 minutes flying past all these stand-stillers as we laughed until we had tears in our eyes.

We get further up ahead and he dips into the mainstream world again. He remarks at how traffic is so light up here. "Oh," he says "we left all the traffic back there." Funny guy. I must confess we got home at least 15 minutes earlier than I normally would have on this route. I thought of our adventure and how it really compares to how we approach life. We drive the way we live. For him, he is a risk taker. He's going to find an easier, better, and sometimes quicker way to achieve a goal. If it means he passes those that refuse to look to the right, then he'll do it. Because it just makes sense to keep it moving. Me? Well, shoot. I'll just sit in the traffic, stuck in the thought that it isn't fair to those other people if I pass them. They are waiting too, you know? It's the compassion in me. They gotta wait so I should wait too, right? And besides, we are supposed to be on the main road. We go on the service road if we're turning and I'm not turning.

Which one is better? All the time, neither is better. I don't condone or judge either one. Oh, don't be mistaken, I was judging all over him as I rolled my eyes and shook my head, laughing all the way. But that's because he's The Hub. I get to give him a hard time like I get a paycheck for doing it. The truth is our personalities guide our decisions. Some of us are going to get out there and do it. Some of us are going to wait until the road opens up in front of us. Either way, drive safe.

Here's The "Skinny" Of It...

So, here's the lowdown on the Zumba saga. Last night I vowed again to try to find this local class and get my Zumba on. Since the previously advertised location was a sudden no-go, this week another location was the place to be. I ventured over to this darkened parking lot, straining my pretty little eyes to try to see the name of the carpet store where this would be held.

I pulled into the extremely dark parking lot to find scattered cars, no people and little light. Picture me hunched over the steering wheel, creeping at about 2 miles an hour, squinting and confused. Somehow I found the store and immediately put on my super-sketchy investigative sensory glasses. A darkened store with some person standing at the inside. Um. I thought to myself, this could be a set up. Some creepy person would surely pay the cost of putting a little ad in the paper saying they do Zumba. "Come on over, you dumb girl, to this darkened store, for some Zumba!" Yikes!

Call me dumb, or call me brave, there I was in the dark. For 3 or 4 seconds I sat in the car wondering if I should really get out. Get out I did, and sauntered up to the darkened door, where now no person was standing. Where did that shadow of a person go? What in the world was I thinking? By the time I got to the door, the lady came back. Turns out she was looking for people who might be trying to find the Zumba spot.

I came in, got acquainted and thankfully my good friend Shay-Shay came along. We positioned ourselves at the back of the back. Like as far back as a girl can stand. Our Zumba instructor, in all her fitness, muscled, toned glory led a great class. This old gal, who has temporarily misplaced her rhythm, was there at the back trying desperately to keep up. It was hard to see her as a more than skinny chick was in front of me. From what I was able to see, I kept up and sweated along. We jammed to wow, I don't know, way too many songs and I went from freezing in a warehouse to sweating my little salsa-ing tail off.

Moral of this story is: Zumba was super-fun, great workout and well worth the risk of being killed by a serial killer in a dark parking lot. Are you local and want to try? Check out Kelly's class at www.gozumbafun.com. I don't advise any of you follow these silly footsteps and go someplace shady, but I do advise that you feel free to take some risks and try something new. I thought I wouldn't be able to walk today. I am more out of shape than some of the ladies in the class that were 2 or more times my size. Goes to show you, use it or lose it. My shape has definitely been lost. Nevertheless, this girl is going to have some hip-shaking fun trying to find it. I'll be back there on that warehouse floor next Monday.