Kudos for Kiddos

The kids have had some accomplishments lately that I wanted to highlight. J received his Webelos badge in Scouts. Here he is getting the award from Brother B.


One of the things he had to do was create a collage that told something about himself. I helped him create this one on the computer.

He was also in the school spelling bee. He made it to the fourth round before missing the word “opportunity.” He was quite disappointed, but we used it as a life lesson that if you want to do well, you have to prepare and work hard – you can’t always get by on natural ability and luck. I thought about having him watch the movie Akeelah and the Bee again to motivate him for next year. :)

N and E are playing soccer right now. The best thing about soccer season is that I get to break out my BIG lens and get some great shots of the action on the field. Normally I love the bright colors of the uniforms, but guess what – both N and E have GRAY jerseys this year. Blah! The only good thing about that is that when we lose a sock we have extras in the same color. (Can you tell this has already happened?)
This is a typical moment from E's games. Notice him on the left, as far removed as possible (mentally and physically) from the action of the game. It is painful for me to watch. Every once in a while he runs and gets a foot on the ball, but mostly he is in his own world and couldn't care less about the game. His coach is very patient with him, and other moms have told me their kids were like that the first year and then made a turnaround the next. Let's hope that's what happens!

Here is a fun moment from one of N's games. His team was down by a few goals (not that anyone is counting, right?). Towards the end of the second half, N's teammate did a corner kick over everyone's heads. It came right to N, who lifted his knee to stop it but ended up knocking it into the goal. It was great! I missed the actual moment on camera, but caught this great shot of celebration with another teammate. After that, anytime someone congratulated him, he would say, "Don't thank me, thank the knee!"

I guess I can't leave out V. The other day T and I sat down to watch a movie. V had wandered into the living room - no big deal. Every once in a while we would hear her play a couple of notes on the piano. Then she gave out one of those nervous-laughing-crying noises. We called her to us, and she didn't come, but we heard her at the piano again so figured she must be okay. This happened a couple more times until she sounded more urgent and I finally figured she must be stuck somewhere, maybe under the piano bench. So like a good parent (hah!) I went to help her and found her sitting ON the piano, next to the part that holds the books, with her feet on the keys. The only thing we can figure (since she keeps on trying to do it again) is that she got up on the couch next to the piano and crawled all the way across to the other end where she was sitting. We are SO grateful she didn't try to climb down because the only thing between her and the floor was the hard corner of the piano bench. So that is her latest accomplishment - climbing. Darn.