St. Louis Vacation, Day 2...

Today we woke up earlier than we wanted to (Ian napped twice yesterday).

After breakfast, we swam for a while. Ian will not get in the water, which is a little bit frustrating when he is running circles around the pool. It is, however, manageable, when he is dipping his feet in the hot tub:


It was also Miah's first time in a pool... well... sort of in a pool... but come on... her swimsuit's cute...

Later in the morning, we left for "The Magic House," St. Louis' Children's Museum. Overall, I am still kind of partial to the Indy Children's Museum, but The Magic House was inexpensive, fun, and there were some very innovative exhibits. We especially enjoyed "The Oval Office," Leaf Climbing, and the Static Electricity Experiment:

Ian loved dressing up in a cape and boots and playing "Super Ian" through several more areas of the "Kids Save the World" exhibit than you are really supposed to keep the costumes on for, I'm sure...


Unfortunately, a little later in our trip, "Super Ian" decided it would be alright to run away from Daddy and his super siblings (while Mommy was nursing Miah), and for 4-5 minutes, no one knew where he was. 4-5 minutes is a very long time when you cannot find your 3 year old in a place that big with so many children running in every conceivable direction. It feels more like an hour... at least... and it is certainly long enough to contact employees and the front desk and to have your child's description running through the entire employee intercom system. To say the least, I was relieved when I found Ian (quite a long way from where we'd last seen him). I was so relieved that I chewed him out and banished him to his baby sister's pink stroller for the remainder of our day at The Magic House.

This did put some things into perspective, however. As I was frantically flying through exhibits, I kept thinking, "If Ian has left this building I am never going to find him and we will never see him again". Panic was definitely the best way to describe it, but later I thought of the parable of the lost sheep. Now, granted, I didn't have 99 children to leave while I went to look for the one lost one, and I was toting Miah, but I did leave my other three children playing at an exhibit (with instructions to stay put) in order to cover as much ground as possible to find Ian. Ordinarily, I would not let even my older kids out of my sight in a place like this for more than a moment, but at the time, it seemed more reasonable to leave them in order to find my lost one. On a lesser level, but pertinent all the same, I also left our stroller which contained Miah's carseat, my purse (wallet, cash, credit cards, ID, SS card, etc.), our video camera, my digital SLR, and my underwater camera strewn in the middle of a crowded hallway, and the truth is; I would have been irritated if anything had been missing when I finally went back for it, but in light of finding Ian, I couldn't have cared less if the whole thing was gone. Guess I must love him, even if he is a hurricane...

Not long after our little incident, we left, because quite frankly; Phil and I were spent.

We found a Quik Trip on the way back, which resulted in me reaffirming my love for frozen juice and hiking my "souvenir" spending to $1.34 for the day (must add souvenir penny from earlier). I think I'm gonna need one of those frozen juices every night...

Tomorrow, we're going to chill...

Lisa

St. Louis or Bust...

... Again?

We set out to make this trip seven years ago...

Then I think we broke a mirror...

Or something...

So today we left the house 1 hour and 21 minutes late, with some wet white laundry in a plastic bag (gosh, I can just never get it all done), and started our long trek to St. Louis... sort of. We're still a little short, but something has to be saved for tomorrow, right?

The ride was basically uneventful, except for the fact that Caleb exclaimed, "We came all this way for nothing" when we were about halfway here, and Seth was less than enthused about the activity books I bought for the trip, and I quote, "Nice try Mom, these are workbooks! I am not doing school on this vacation! I'd rather take a nap!"

George and Ruth let us borrow their GPS, and because I am such a dork, I used it to keep constant tabs on what restaurants were in the immediate area... hehehe... This did result in our finding a Cheddars for dinner, which is always a plus!

Miah rode well almost all the way, even though Ian stole all her toys.

We listened to our share of Adventures in Odyssey, and fighting was kept to a minimum... although noise was certainly not!

At this moment, Grace is sleeping on the top bunk. It has Batman sheets, and she is less than impressed. Seth is sleeping on the bottom bunk and has proclaimed his bed to be, "stupid". Caleb and Ian are sleeping together, both wearing pull-ups, which I was never going to buy again, but decided it was worth it for a dry vacation. Miah is spread out on the other bed, and we actually might have to call the front desk to bring a crib after all... for us...

Phil made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to purchase a swimsuit for Seth tonight, because we are pretty sure at this point that he left his at camp. Wal-mart was very far away, but Phil is back now.

Life is ironic sometimes... even unmemorable... but this week I hope to make some great memories with our family... finally in St. Louis!

Come back every night to hear about our adventures and leave me some comments so I'll know if anyone is reading!

Lisa

Ramona and Beezus...

… A Review. (Spoilers, as always).

Yesterday, Phil and I had an opportunity to go out… almost alone… (Miah is still rather “Mommy dependant”). We decided to take in a movie, and since “The Last Airbender” is already gone from our theater, and we didn’t feel inclined to see the animated, “Despicable Me”, we were left with “Ramona and Beezus”… I have to admit, I was happy, because that’s what I really wanted to see anyway…

And I was not disappointed. At all.

Let me begin by saying that although this particular film was 100% acceptable to me as something I will show my children… soon… really soon… it was really not a kids’ movie. Ramona was adorable, and her antics will certainly keep the kids’ attention. There are also some valuable life lessons for siblings that I hope won’t be lost on my kids… especially my oldest two… But as an adult… and as an adult who has experienced some of the situations that ran through the plot of this movie… simply put, I loved it.

Ramona and Beezus is a comedy… as was evident to me by the fact that there were some scenes that were so ridiculously funny I really had to consciously stop myself from laughing long after everyone else in the theater was done. It is a comedy for real people… with real families… and real kids. It was funny, because I could see it happening to me, and it’s always funnier when other people’s kids get stuck upside-down on the monkey bars… or make tiaras out of burrs… or tie-dye the neighbors’ vehicle.

But in a lot of ways, Ramona and Beezus was a drama, too. A drama for real people… with real families… and real kids. I can’t say that I cried (which is saying a lot… pregnancy hormones must finally be out of my body some four months later), but I can say that I related to the ups and downs of the Quimby family. I related to the big things… but I related to the small things, too… And I had to stop and wonder why it really is funnier when a baby dumps food on her head than when a 3rd grader does… and if I would yell at my child if she fell through the living room ceiling.

I loved that Ramona took the worst school picture ever… and that someone always either had Roberta in a baby carrier or was toting the baby monitor… and that Beezus compassionately helped her sister through the death of a loved pet, even after Ramona had just set the kitchen on fire and ruined Beezus’ love life… on speakerphone! I loved that we could revisit music from the early 90s and that plastic gumball machine rings have sentimental value. And I even loved that we leave the Quimby family with a new addition, a ziplock bag full of toothpaste, a stack of bills, and two part time jobs… and they’re happier than they were when we found them.

So stop reading this, already, and get out and go see this movie! It’s rare that such a gem is found anymore in the land of sticky floors and hundred dollar popcorn!

Lisa

PS For those of you who use plugged in movie reviews or know that I use plugged in and rely heavily on their reviews to determine what we will see, I have to make a couple of notes. The primary reason I didn’t feel comfortable taking the kids to see “Ramona and Beezus” without first previewing it was the “spiritual content” section of plugged in’s review. Having now seen the film, myself, I can say that I honestly felt like everything mentioned here was very childishly appropriate (from ancient burial grounds to cats with 9 lives). I also initially had some concern about Ramona’s reference to Jesus (after reading the review) only to find that it was not only perfectly contextual, but in fact endearing…

That Wasn't Fun...

Sometimes it doesn't really matter how good your intentions are... things go wrong...

Our kids have been asking (maybe more like begging) to go back to the bowling alley since the last church trip there. Today we finally had the opportunity to take them. It is a real plus that our bowling alley is smoke free on Sunday afternoons/evenings, and it just happened to work out that we didn't have anything scheduled, so we packed everybody up around 5:00 and planned to go bowl a couple of games (using a gift card that we got over 2 years ago)!

I am always a little embarrassed that I don't know what size shoes my kids wear (off the top of my head), but once everyone's toes weren't being squished anymore... and the kids had the lightest balls available... and we had two lanes set up (one with bumpers and one without)... we were ready to roll (uh... literally for Ian)...

I hadn't bowled in 7 years...

That said, I probably should have bowled on the lane with bumpers! I scored an amazing 64 in the first game and 60 in the second... Grace even beat me! But that's not why it wasn't fun. I probably looked like an absolute moron... high fiving after every gutter ball... but I'm good with that. In fact, I personally enjoyed bowling so much, yesterday, that I want to go back... but I'm leaving the kids at home!

Somehow, the instruction, "Sit down between your turns!" fell on deaf ears. Seth never wants to bowl again, because he didn't get any strikes or spares... Caleb never wants to bowl again, because he took last place... Grace wants to bowl again, but it's probably just because she won... and we had to take turns chasing Ian around the bowling alley while bouncing a cranky Miah, except when it was Ian's turn and we had to encourage him to just sit down and roll the ball, or it was never going to make it to the pins... again... In the end, Ian was so frustrated that he literally laid face down in front of his lane and just started screaming! Seriously?

It also didn't help that on this "family friendly" evening we got an education in popular music. I can't even remember how the rest of the song went, but there was one particular song that used d... at least a dozen times. I only have two hands, and with 10 ears to cover this wasn't workin' for me. This was immediately followed by Usher's OMG, at which point I went to the counter and asked if it was possible to change the station (by the way, we were the ONLY people bowling, so I didn't figure it would be a problem). The girl at the counter told me that it was possible and then just kind of looked at me like she was wondering why I wanted to know. I then explained that there was some really inappropriate content for children (heck, there was inappropriate content for me, but I didn't say that) at which point she looked at me as if I'd just sprouted a third eye, but she did eventually turn the music down so we couldn't hear it where we were.

I don't think we're going to do that again... Wii bowling it is...

Lisa

Miah's 3 Month Pics...

My baby is getting so big, so fast! 3 months old today:

Lisa

My Thoughts On Toy Story 3…

… A Review…



Phil and I felt the need to “preview” Toy Story 3 before giving the OK for our little people to watch it. This is due largely in part to the fact that I had to get an education about what an ascot was after seeing the trailer when we last visited the theater for Oceans…



Let me say, upfront, that I didn’t like the ascot comment any more in the movie, itself, than I did in the trailer. However, it is not used in an isolated incidence, so I guess there is some value to that. The kids are going to ask what an ascot is… and they’re probably going to ask what leg warmers are too… and since my kids have never even heard the 3 letter “A word” that was supposed to be so funny in that scene, I guess they’ll just get a fashion education (like their Mom did), because they won’t even catch the double meaning. That said, I think Disney/Pixar really bombed at the attempt at adult humor with this one, because I have yet to talk to anyone who thought it was funny, and no one laughed at the theater…



That said… I also went into this film a little concerned about how the filmmakers were using the word “astronaut” (based on another review), and in the end I didn’t find anything inappropriate about it’s use… at all… which I guess just goes to show we could spend hours picking every word and every motive apart, and it probably wouldn’t amount to a good use of our time…



Now… the movie itself…



Oh… wow…



It was just incredible…



Before I go on, let me make my disclaimer here. Spoilers will follow! If you haven’t seen Toy Story 3 yet, please stop reading and go purchase a ticket! You can read what I thought about it when you get home!



We all knew it would happen one day. Andy would go to college. But I don’t think it ever occurred to me that Disney/Pixar would wait the appropriate number of years and then release a third film, in close to “real time”! It was a tear jerker for me (3 times), because the life lessons were abundant (as they have been all along in the Toy Story run) and because the progression of childhood was so poignantly portrayed. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that all moms will cry, and some college students might roll their eyes…



Woody calls a final “Andy’s Room” meeting, and we find that only a handful of toys remain. Among them are favorites: Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Slinky, Ham, Jessie, Bullseye, the Aliens, and a few straggling Army Men. But even Etch and Bo Peep have long since been vanquished from the bedroom.



Andy’s Mom is pushing him to make decisions about where his stuff will go before he leaves for college at the end of the week. He can take it with him or store it in the attic, but anything left in his room is hitting the dumpster. And at this point, I have to be honest, I thought, “Come on, Andy’s Mom! Aren’t you the least bit sentimental? Give the kid a break, would ya?” But I suppose the teenaged Molly is pushing pretty hard for Andy’s room, and Mom is redeemed when in the waning minutes of the film, she does stop to look around Andy’s nearly empty room, and her voice catches when the reality of Andy’s departure hits.



Andy finally opens up the toy box and proceeds to stuff everyone but Woody and Buzz into a trash bag. He looks at both of them, and in the end pushes Buzz in with the rest of the toys and drops Woody in the box marked, “college”. It is never Andy’s intent to trash his toys… they are supposed to be stored in the garbage bag in the attic… but through a series of events, Mom accidentally mistakes them for garbage and their adventure begins… again…



I am sure in the coming months (and probably especially when the DVD hits the shelf), I will take some time to highlight the various teaching points that were so prominent in this movie. The garbage dump scene was amazing. But for now let me just say that Disney/Pixar did a good job of bringing closure to this chapter.



I would have liked to see Woody go to college. And I actually wouldn’t have minded seeing our other friends tucked safely in the attic. Of course they do make it home to Andy, but this time it’s not for keeps. I loved that Andy stopped to play with his toys one last time…



And then life went on…



As it generally does…



Lisa

The Money Pit...

… was a funny movie in 1986 (I guess… I haven’t seen it since about that year, so this isn’t a recommendation or anything…). I did just check out the tagline, “For everyone who's ever been deeply in love or deeply in debt”… and I laughed… uh… sort of. It wasn’t that deep kind of belly laugh that you make when something is really funny. It was more sardonic… a lot more sardonic…


So this all began with me… standing in the kitchen… choking down raw vegetables and thinking about how I really needed to write a blog post about them, because they were gross, but I was proud of myself for making a healthy choice in the midst of a desire to stress eat, instead.


Enter Grace: “Mommy, the living room roof is leaking!” Said in the way that only Grace can convey a sure disaster… followed by me thinking, “Seriously? ‘Cause it’s not even raining!”


So I go out into the living room, and I mean the roof is not just leaking… it’s pouring… in several locations… At this point, I look outside, just to make sure it’s not raining and that the house has not been picked up in a funnel cloud or strewn across the country or anything… and that there are no witches on bicycles riding by my window. Assured that none of these events have taken place, I begin to think rationally again…


And it occurs to me that the bulk of the water is coming from right below the upstairs bathroom… where my oldest child… notorious for ridiculously long showers… is…


So I shout, “Grace! Run upstairs and tell your brother to turn the shower off!” Which she does… but it’s already off. In her absence, I also run to the kitchen and grab as many mixing bowls as I can to stop the water… because I don’t know where we keep the buckets…


And Caleb suggests that we call a plumber…


And I immediately think of Mario and Luigi…


And then I think of Bowser and wonder if we might be better off calling a demolition team…


I calmly call up to Seth and instruct him to get downstairs as quickly as he can, because I’m not sure if the living room roof is going to cave in or not… and Seth appears… wearing clothes that are soaking wet. I might have had slightly more mercy if the first words out of his mouth weren’t, “Hey Mom… the bathroom is kinda like a shallow swimming pool!” These words were said with great excitement… as if it’s really cool that we now have a second level indoor swimming pool…


Amazingly, however, when asked how this happened, he had no idea! I’m almost positive, myself, that it had something to do with the Lego submarine that I found floating around the bathroom floor…


So I dried the bathroom floor out… and let me tell ya, it took a lot of towels…


And on my way back down the stairs I hear Grace proclaiming that the living room is leaking a lot less (no kidding… thanks for letting me know…)


And I don’t really even want to think about how much damage there is. But I finished my vegetables… and a whole container of raspberries… and I’m gonna go get that ice cream now…


Lisa

VBS has never really been my thing…

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think there is a whole lot of good about VBS. I understand that a lot of kids would never hear about Jesus without it. And I know that a good number of kids go from VBS to VBS all summer long to get away from unhealthy home situations. And I know that a lot of parents depend on VBS for a safe place to drop their kids off in the summer so the whole family doesn’t go stir crazy. Further, I know that there are a lot of kids out there (like mine) that just look forward to having a week full of fun activities and friends that all helps to strengthen their faith. I didn’t say that VBS is a bad thing. It’s not… at all. I just said that VBS isn’t my thing… Not that everything has to be about me, because it doesn’t…


As a kid, I wasn’t even into VBS. My mom was. She helped out at every VBS in town. I tried to hide and pretended I was a teenager (long before I was) so I wouldn’t get assigned to a class. I’m 30 years old now. She still helps at every VBS in town. In fact, she asked me about VBS on the phone, just today, as if it is a foregone conclusion that if you have children (and maybe even if you don’t) VBS is going to take a prominent place in your summer vacation. I told her it was scheduled for next week… and that I was going to lead the music… and that that was a good assignment for me, because I would only have to be there at the beginning and the end (gasp)… and that I really didn’t know anything more about it… But I did get to thinking that maybe I ought to listen to the music, since it’s Thursday and all…


Um… yeah…


I knew I was pretty much in trouble when I hit play and immediately started having theological issues (as a side note… if you ever want to brainlessly enjoy a church related function again, don’t go to Bible college…


Ecclesiastes 1:18 “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief” (NIV))…

Please… fundamentalists… don’t jump on me before you read this whole paragraph… but the Bible is really not the Word of God. The Bible is, indeed, the inspired written words of God to us. The Bible is, indeed, God’s message for us in written form. I love the Bible. But Jesus is the Word of God (please see John 1). I am a little sickened that I have volunteered to stand in front of children for five nights next week teaching Bible worship. Ouch.


As if this wasn’t bad enough, the creators of this curriculum have also dug way back into the 1980s for some of their song choices. I never… ever... though I’d have to, “shake a friend’s hand, shake a hand next to ya,” again. I am so enlisting my 8 year old daughter for this task.


Not all of the music is bad, and I am just going to choose to focus on that if I possibly can… hand motions and all… And please… If you are reading this, do not think that I am belittling my church’s choice of resources for this year’s VBS or anything. Every person I have had contact with this summer is using this VBS program! I'm sure it's a great program. I just have issues...


Guess it just goes to show that you should ask for lots of details before you volunteer so you’ll know what you’re really getting into. I hope nobody I ask to volunteer for anything in the near future just read this…


Lisa

Those Are My Kids...

... For Better or For Worse (Part 2)...

It was a heck of a school year...

As a homeschooling parent, in a state with no standards for homeschoolers, I am always a little bit concerned about whether my kids are getting the education they really deserve. Up until this year, I always believed they were, but then with the difficulties that came with my pregnancy, I started to really worry that they were going to get far behind and fail the standardized tests at the end of the year (which aren't required, but we do them anyway). I even considered opting to not test Caleb, because he struggled so much with learning to read this year, and I think there is a distinct possibility that he is dyslexic, and with that in mind, I was just sure he would fail the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills... the state of Indiana will not allow homeschoolers to take the Indiana standardized test, so I figure the ITBS is the way to go, since it is nationally recognized, and if I ever choose to move anywhere, it would be Iowa...)

Well... in the end we decided to go ahead and test everybody, because the truth is I'm pretty hard on homeschooling parents who don't test their kids, and if I couldn't claim to be a great educator this year, I still wanted to at least be able to claim that I'm not a hypocrite!

As we tested, I peeked at the answers my kids were giving, and I thought... this is not good. I mean... they weren't missing everything or anything like that, but it just had this feel to it that the year really had been as bad as I'd thought. (I was... at no point... worried that they would not get the minimum 30th percentile score that, if not achieved, can relieve you of your homeschooling choice in many states. But I wasn't happy with what I thought they might score, either. And again... a reminder... we live in a state with ZERO standards, so it doesn't really matter as far as our ability to continue homeschooling, but it matters... a lot... to me that our kids are getting a good education)!

When we returned from the regional children's quiz, the first thing I noticed in the mail was the envelope with their scores... So I opened it...

Seth's scores were on top, and I just stood there sort of gaping...

I am not going to bore you with every detail, but his composite score was in the 78th percentile (not as good as usual, but OK), and what really surprised me was that his grade level came out as 6.6, which means his knowledge is comparable to a sixth grader in January. Since Seth will be starting 5th grade in the fall, I'm good with that. On Seth's behalf, I would also like to mention that the total percentile score would have been considerably higher if he didn't stink at capitalization... and that's something we can easily work on. The rest of the scores were quite good.

Grace's scores came out next...

Her composite score was in the 81st percentile, with a grade level equivalent of 5.2 (or 5th grade, roughly September). Since she will be starting 4th grade in the fall, she is also still ahead of the game. Grace now has a 7th grade reading level, and although her math scores continue to be a struggle from year to year, she has "caught up" to where she should be, scoring average for a child finishing 3rd grade. Another sigh of relief...

At this point, I looked at Phil and informed him that I really didn't even want to see Caleb's scores. But we figured we'd better look at them anyhow...

So I flipped to the next page, and I'll be darned if the kid didn't score in the 98th percentile! What? Are you kidding me? Caleb's grade level came out at 1st grade in May, and he will be beginning 1st grade in the fall. His math level was mid-2nd grade. And even "reading words" (which was his lowest score) was right at Kindergarten grade level in May, which is when he took the test. Perhaps I have forgotten what Kindergartners are expected to know at the end of the year...

And perhaps I am too hard on my kids...

And perhaps I am too hard on myself...

Live and learn... again... and again... and again...

Lisa

Those Are My Kids…

… For Better or For Worse… (Part 1)

So… the regional children’s quiz. It was a great weekend full of fun times and catching up with old friends, which is always good. And like most of my life’s events, I didn’t set out to learn anything about myself on this trip, but I did anyway…

We left the house around 2:00 and arrived at Olivet in plenty of time to register. We stayed on campus at the apartments that used to be such a hot commodity and now make me laugh… sort of… except the itty bitty bathrooms… How do four college aged girls share a bathroom that size for a whole year? We unpacked, turned the air conditioning to high, and headed out in search of dinner, which we found at Coyote Canyon… pretty yummy, although the older I get, the less I seem to be able to stuff myself at buffets (which is probably a good thing). After a quick trip to Target where we bought Toy Story socks at one spot (in case we had to bowl instead of mini golf), we were off to Hidden Cove.

Overall, this was a fun experience. The arcade…maybe not so much. But the mini golf course was great, and there was a lot that we would have liked to explore there given more time. I golfed a stellar 70… on 18 holes… one handed… with Miah in the wrap… probably the worst score I’ve ever had, but it was still a fun challenge!

We got in super late… crashed… (Phil brought me a huge Cherry Pepsi that I woke briefly to enjoy)… and then woke up early to start all over again!

After breakfast (which ended up being a few bites of a pancake, Lucky Charms, and some mandarin oranges for me), it was time for the kids to get seated for the quiz. I ran (sort of) over in the sprinkling rain with Grace, Ian, and Miah, and as we got to the building it dawned on me that I’d left the quiz boxes in the van… uh… big oops! I called Phil, who dropped Seth and Caleb off with me and then went to get the boxes. I think we had about 30 seconds to spare… In all of this fun, I also dropped my apartment key and then had to go up to the stage to retrieve it… talk about embarrassing, but at least I got to snap a quick pic. of Seth and Grace (the parents had already been told to leave the quiz area and to take pictures later)!

The quizzing began… and I proceeded to shove animal crackers (“Buffalos”) into Caleb and Ian’s mouths after every question for three rounds to keep them quiet. This was a good plan. The Buffalo thing made Ian giggle, though…

At the end of the quiz, Seth and Grace had each missed one question in each round. Grace was OK with that. You never really know what you’re going to get with Grace. This is the child that begged the scorekeeper to mark her wrong at the state quiz, because she thought she’d errored! On the other hand, she was also so nervous before the global quiz last summer that I thought she’d surely bomb the whole thing, and she ended with a perfect day there… Depending on her mood, she might be happy with how she quizzes… or she might be outraged… but today she was all good…

And then there was Seth, who handled everything pretty well through the first and second rounds but was just overcome with frustration when he errored on the last question of the third round, keeping him from having even one perfect round today (even though he has consistently racked up perfect rounds and even perfect days throughout the year). Although I’m not going to tell him this (he’s a pretty smart kid and may have figured it out on his own already, anyway), that last error also kept him out of the top 10 judging from the score that my friend’s son had, which put him in. When the trophies were awarded, we went into breakdown mode, and Phil found Seth crying between a drinking fountain and a wall…

Seth is his mother’s child… because I’m not sure I ever made it through a quiz at which I didn’t cry… sometimes in obscure places on the floor somewhere… and that was teen quizzing! (‘Course… I guess it wouldn’t be my legacy if there wasn’t some sort of controversy, now would it? At least I didn't have to break into any buildings this time...)

It’s funny, though, because even with my history, I am kind of a “suck it up” Mom. It’s probably a good thing that Phil went looking for Seth and found him, because I am sure he handled it better than I would have, and heck… he even managed to get Seth to return to the auditorium for a team picture with Toby the Tiger. So… I’m thinking that’s standing ovation worthy… yeah Dad!

Now what I have to say next could probably be taken wrong, and the fact is, it probably will be taken wrong by somebody, even though I am adding this disclaimer… I am so proud of my kids! I am proud of everything they do, and I am proud of the people they are becoming. But I understand the frustration when things don’t go the way they’d planned. I am not saying that I would have been any more proud of either one of them if they’d placed in the top 10 or scored a little better and pushed their team into the top 3. But I understand the competitive drive to do so, and I’m OK with it if they cry when they don’t come out on top (as long as they don’t become a serious distraction or hurt others in the process… that I’m not OK with).

I think this stems from the fact that (here comes that “things I learn about myself without wanting to” moment) all my life I was good at everything I did (except T-ball… I sucked at T-ball), but I was never “the best”. And I always wanted to be the best. And naturally, I now want my kids to be the best.

And so I’m sitting there thinking about this when I look up at the stage and see Grace sitting on the edge of it… which took me back to another time and place (just across campus) when I sat down on the edge of a similar stage… And then I look over at Caleb and think about the steely concentration in his eyes just a few days ago when I reminded him that he could quiz next year followed by, “you’ll be good at it,” and he said, “yes I will”. And I wonder if I’ve created a monster… or two… or three… or four… or five… (enough for a full quiz team, you know...)

And may I re-state… for better or for worse, I see myself in these guys… And I’m OK with that, too…

Lisa