I really want to crank out a kid sports update. But this is our busiest week of the spring – two games tonight, track meet tomorrow, two games Thursday, game Friday, track meet Sunday – and it seems like I should wait until we get through it before I start breaking things down for you.<\/p>\n
Instead I\u2019ll share what I did with the girls last week, when I spent two days with them at school activities.<\/p>\n
Tuesday I went with C\u2019s class to the Indianapolis Indians game. It was a beautiful day, sunny and pushing 70. Unfortunately we were in the lower deck under the overhang so it was still a little chilly.<\/p>\n
This is the third or fourth time I\u2019ve gone to a baseball game with the girls and a school group. It was the oldest group I\u2019ve gone with, and that was reflected in how we all sat. Although we were in the same section as the kids, the parents and teachers all kept to one side and the kids to another. In the past I would always be sitting right with my daughter and the group of kids I was responsible for.<\/p>\n
Tuesday I had a group of five girls in my group, and they had instructions to check in with me anytime they went to get food, go to the restroom, etc and then to always have a buddy with them. One of the girls in my group is someone I know pretty well. She\u2019s a really sweet kid and has probably never been in trouble in her life. Every single time she left she told me. I texted her mom to compliment her and asked if she was a rule follower. \u201cFor sure!\u201d was the response.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the kids had a good time. The Indians won – although former Royal Brandon Maurer tried to blow a three-run lead. C won a couple stuffed animals playing games. My entire group was accounted for at the end of the game. The dad who rode down with me observed that he didn\u2019t think he had been to a baseball game and not had a beer since high school. Later that evening I saw one of the teachers posted a picture of her iced tea with the diamond in the background. Because of the light, it looked at first glance like she was drinking a beer. Man, that would have been some good stuff for a teacher to be sneaking beers and then posting on Facebook about it!<\/p>\n
Thursday was the school\u2019s annual day of service. I volunteered to join L\u2019s class at the distribution center for a local mission. We spent most of the day sorting through large donation boxes. In our morning session somehow L and I got put with almost all the boys in her grade. She was literally the only girl in the group. You haven\u2019t lived until you\u2019ve spent two-plus hours with a bunch of fourth grade boys digging through boxes of random shit. Each time they uncovered anything interesting, they would have to yell out what it was and then the rest of the group would come running over. \u201cOOOOHHH, look, a naked Barbie!\u201d \u201cHEY! I found a bowling ball!\u201d The coolest thing they found was an original PlayStation, which knocked them off track for at least ten minutes. The coolest thing I found was a Rubbermaid box filled with random crap along with two, infant-sized, dirty diapers. Yeah, that was fun. The highlight was all the yelling at kids I got to do, because they were mostly acting like idiots. At lunch I asked L if the boys always acted like that. \u201cYes, they\u2019re sooooo annoying!\u201d Seriously, boys are a disaster. I don\u2019t know how you parents of boys do it.<\/p>\n
We got moved to the other group after lunch and here we just dug through boxes of clothes. That was more laid back and there was less yelling, although I did get to lay the smack down on a few kids again. Over the weekend C and L both said all the boys in their classes are afraid of me because I yell at them. Mission accomplished!<\/p>\n
I realized that I\u2019ve come a long way. Years ago I never would have yelled at someone else\u2019s kid, and I was always confused by parents who would raise their voices at school events when teachers were present. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a private school thing, because the school is part of a church and we feel like we\u2019re all a part of the community, or something else, but St. P\u2019s parents are never shy about jumping in to correct behavior. I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve lost my reserve about barking at kids when they act like fools.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had nothing with M\u2019s class, although she is about to start a very busy final month at St. P\u2019s. Her class goes to DC next week. There\u2019s a Mother\u2019s Mass and Mom-Kid day out a week later. There\u2019s an awards event the following week. We have about 100 different small projects to get turned in before graduation. And graduation itself at the end of May. Time is flying in her world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I really want to crank out a kid sports update. But this is our busiest week of the spring – two games tonight, track meet tomorrow, two games Thursday, game Friday, track meet Sunday – and it seems like I should wait until we get through it before I start breaking things down for you. Instead I\u2019ll share what I did with the girls last week, when I spent two days with them at school activities. Tuesday I went with C\u2019s class to the Indianapolis Indians game. It was a beautiful day, sunny and pushing 70. Unfortunately we were in the lower deck under the overhang so it was still a little chilly. This is the third or fourth time I\u2019ve gone to a baseball game with the girls and a school group. It was the oldest group I\u2019ve gone with, and that was reflected in how we all sat. Although we were in the same section as the kids, the parents and teachers all kept to one side and the kids to another. In the past I would always be sitting right with my daughter and the group of kids I was responsible for. Tuesday I had a group of five girls in my group, and they had instructions to check in with me anytime they went to get food, go to the restroom, etc and then to always have a buddy with them. One of the girls in my group is someone I know pretty well. She\u2019s a really sweet kid and has probably never been in trouble in her life. Every single time she left she told me. I texted her mom to compliment her and asked if she was a rule follower. \u201cFor sure!\u201d was the response. Anyway, the kids had a good time. The Indians won – although former Royal Brandon Maurer tried to blow a three-run lead. C won a couple stuffed animals playing games. My entire group was accounted for at the end of the game. The dad who rode down with me observed that he didn\u2019t think he had been to a baseball game and not had a beer since high school. Later that evening I saw one of the teachers posted a picture of her iced tea with the diamond in the background. Because of the light, it looked at first glance like she was drinking a beer. Man, that would have been some good stuff for a teacher to be sneaking beers and then posting on Facebook about it! Thursday was the school\u2019s annual day of service. I volunteered to join L\u2019s class at the distribution center for a local mission. We spent most of the day sorting through large donation boxes. In our morning session somehow L and I got put with almost all the boys in her grade. She was literally the only girl in the group. You haven\u2019t lived until you\u2019ve spent two-plus hours with a bunch of fourth grade boys digging through boxes of random shit. Each time they uncovered anything interesting, they would have to yell out what it was and then the rest of the group would come running over. \u201cOOOOHHH, look, a naked Barbie!\u201d \u201cHEY! I found a bowling ball!\u201d The coolest thing they found was an original PlayStation, which knocked them off track for at least ten minutes. The coolest thing I found was a Rubbermaid box filled with random crap along with two, infant-sized, dirty diapers. Yeah, that was fun. The highlight was all the yelling at kids I got to do, because they were mostly acting like idiots. At lunch I asked L if the boys always acted like that. \u201cYes, they\u2019re sooooo annoying!\u201d Seriously, boys are a disaster. I don\u2019t know how you parents of boys do it. We got moved to the other group after lunch and here we just dug through boxes of clothes. That was more laid back and there was less yelling, although I did get to lay the smack down on a few kids again. Over the weekend C and L both said all the boys in their classes are afraid of me because I yell at them. Mission accomplished! I realized that I\u2019ve come a long way. Years ago I never would have yelled at someone else\u2019s kid, and I was always confused by parents who would raise their voices at school events when teachers were present. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a private school thing, because the school is part of a church and we feel like we\u2019re all a part of the community, or something else, but St. P\u2019s parents are never shy about jumping in to correct behavior. I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve lost my reserve about barking at kids when they act like fools. I\u2019ve had nothing with M\u2019s class, although she is about to start a very busy final month at St. P\u2019s. Her class goes to DC next week. There\u2019s a Mother\u2019s Mass and Mom-Kid day out a week later. There\u2019s an awards event the following week. We have about 100 different small projects to get turned in before graduation. And graduation itself at the end of May. Time is flying in her world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,26,14,63],"class_list":["post-7395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baseball","tag-family","tag-parenting","tag-school"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13215,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395\/revisions\/13215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}