kids: April 2007 Archives

This weekend is pretty busy. A beginner BMX clinic for my daughter and soccer games for both my kids Saturday and Sunday. Lots of running around to keep me busy.

So far my son's team won and my daughter's team experienced their first loss this season. I actually thought they would go undefeated, but things just weren't clicking for them today. It was a difficult game for the girls today. They played a team that is one of the better teams. They've beat them before, but today just wasn't their day. Whenever that team and my daughter's team gets on the field together things get a little rough. Both of the teams have some aggressive players. There's pushing and shoving, and the ref doesn't catch all of it. As you can probably guess, whatever the ref doesn't catch he's going to get a lot of grief over at the hands of angry soccer moms and dads.

For example, today one of the coaches/dads from the opposing team at my daughter's game became so perturbed that he began yelling, "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!" from across the field. I think what bothered him was that the ref didn't call a foul that the guy thought he should have called. This was followed by some confusion about who should be throwing in after the ball had gone out of bounds. Thank goodness he didn't decide to get all violent over it. At one point he did come onto the field and was trying to argue with the ref. It's real easy to sit back and classify that guy as a major prick who is trying to live his life vicariously through his kid and since he never accomplished much he's not going to let his little girl grow up to be like him. But that wouldn't really be very nice to think of someone like that. Would it? Perhaps he doesn't realize that by behaving the way he does he'll probably guarantee that she does grow up to be just like him because he's teaching her exactly how to do it.

My 11 year-old son is trying his hand at stop-motion animation.

I loaned him my camera and tripod and we created a short ( about 7 seconds or so ) little film with Windows Movie Maker. He did all the clay and animation stuff with a little help from his little sister. She manned the camera for a while. I helped out with uploading the pictures and figuring out the movie maker software.

For now, the windows movie file resides on the web host's server. But, I think we are going to look at uploading the video to You Tube and see if that works better for him. We're learning a few things by doing this and I think it would be kind of cool if he started sharing his experiences while doing this.

Ever find yourself thinking, remembering, reminiscing about growing up and the things you miss? Here are a few that I remember. Some of them are still around; others gone forever:

• GI Joe with the Kung-Fu Grip - No kid could resist one of these.
• Big Jim's Rescue Rig - My favorite. I had a few other Big Jim toys as a kid. They fueled many a Saturday morning adventure.
• The smell of fresh-baked rolls drifting through the school hallways just before lunch. Olfactory memories stick with us the longest. Even if you didn't like school lunches, I'm sure this smell would take you back.
• Fall Preview show of the Saturday Morning cartoon lineup. - Remember Hong Kong Phooey? How about Captain Caveman? Run Joe Run? Land of the Lost?
• Pick-up baseball in the street.
• Playing post-office. I played the first time with the girl across the street. I think her name was Kathy. We were both in the second or third grade. It's never been the same since.
• The first day of school. It was always filled with optimism. You got to wear your brand new "school clothes" that sat in the closet until the day you picked your favorite to wear on that very day.
• The last day of school. It was filled with absolutely nothing. Usually we had a field day and got to have recess the majority of the day. The excitement built over the entire day ultimately erupting into a rush for the doors at the final bell.
• Creature Feature. It was always on during the weekends starting around 8 pm. I would watch cheesy, old horror flicks into the night. My favorite host was the Son of Svengoolie.
• The Fonz - He was the definition of "cool" when I was a kid.

How about you? Anything you remember that really takes you back?

It's been a busy weekend of soccer games - three of them to be exact. My daughter's team won both of their games on Saturday and Sunday. My son's team lost, but they played incredibly against the top ranked team in their league.

Whoever may say that girl's soccer is boring or lacks intensity as compared to boy's soccer hasn't been to one of my daughter's games. My daughter isn't in the picture below, but it does demonstrate that they're not afraid to follow the ball into the goal regardless of the goalie being in the way or not.


So far my daughter's team is undefeated. They're really starting to show that they are beginning to understand the game. Hats off to their coach on the start of a great season.

Note - no little girls were harmed as a result of this play.