This weekend was a little different that other recent ones. No football, for starters. I also avoided the KU game, mostly because other plans kept me from seeing the beginning and by the time I had a chance to fire up the TV, several friends told me not to bother turning it on.
It was also our first significant snow of the year. We only got between 3–4 inches Saturday night (and then another inch last night), but that was enough for the girls to get outside with a few of their cousins Sunday to build a snowman and play for a bit. I had to pick L up from a friend’s house right in the heart of the snow Saturday evening. It was fun to turn on the four wheel drive and slip around a little bit on the turns. When M went to work Sunday the roads were fine, and by the time she returned home the parking lots at the high school across the street had already been cleared. I really need to get her out in a snowy, empty lot so she can be prepared if she ever gets caught out of the house when the roads get bad.
We watched one of our four-year-old nephews overnight Saturday. I think this is the first time this nephew has spent the night with us, or at least first since he was much younger. He’s in the “Why?” stage and wore us all out with questions. We were watching a movie Saturday evening, I forget which one, and it was something he had seen multiple times. He absolutely peppered us with questions. Why this, why that, who’s that, where’s he going, why is he going there and on and on. After about 20 minutes I cracked.
“Dude, you’ve seen this movie before, you know what happens!”
He thought that was pretty funny and just continued with the questions.
I obviously went through this three times with my kids, but I think I either tuned it out better or just had more patience then.
He’s a good kid, though. Smart, hilarious, and fun to be around.
It was funny when one of the other four-year-olds came over Sunday. They play really well together but are both pretty stubborn. They’ve already learned that when they get off the same page, they separate and do their own things. It’s amusing to see them argue for a moment and then drift apart, until one of them does something that catches the other’s interest and they hustle back together.
L had a game Saturday. They went to 3–1 with a 25–12 win. More impressive since their best player was out. L found a spot in the zone the other team was playing and just kept shooting. She hit two quick ones out of the main offense, then missed 2–3. The coach moved her to off-guard and had her start on the opposite side, curl under the basket to her spot, then had the high post player hit her with a pass. She hit the first shot and then missed a couple more. She and another girl combined for our first 12 points to put us up 12–2 and they led by 8–12 points the rest of the game. I think she ended up with 8 points and 4–5 both assists and steals for the game.
I gave her grief for missing two free throws late that would have put her in double figures. She missed the first one badly, barely grazing the left side of the rim before it smacked the backboard. One of the refs, an older guy, was standing right in front of me. He and his partner were more comedy act that referees and he let out a loud groan and then started laughing after the miss. I mock yelled at him, “Hey, I can laugh about her bad misses but you can’t do that!” He doubled over in laughter and patted my shoulder, “Sorry, Dad!” He was killing me the entire game.
One thing L is really good at is keeping her head up on the break and pitching the ball forward if a teammate is ahead of her. That’s how she gets most of her assists. Saturday she twice threw the ball to the weakest player on the team, who somehow was in front of everyone. The first pass connected and the girl came to a dead stop and fired a chest-pass shot toward the rim that hit the bottom, careened back, and nearly took her head off. L and her teammates who rode with us cracked up about it after the game. “Did you see H’s shot?!?!”
The second pass was something else. L was on the wing this time, received a pass, and saw H under the basket. L did a finger-tip, no-look touch pass. She kind of tossed it up the way you would an alley oop rather than extended her arms out. Poor H isn’t very tall and the ball sailed over her head. If our best player was in the game and in that spot, it would have been an awesome play. Unfortunately she was elsewhere, so it went in the scorebook as a turnover.
L has also developed a funny bad habit on the court. If she’s bringing the ball up against a press and starts to get trapped, she puts the ball in her left hand, tosses it forward behind/around the defender, runs out of bounds and tries to get around the defender, jumps back in bounds, and then tries to catch the ball. It hasn’t worked yet but she keeps trying. It annoys me during the games but afterward I find it highly amusing. I like that she refuses to get trapped, but she needs to learn to toss the ball to a teammate rather than just throw it to space.