We Are The Football Champions, Times Two

Why do I miss all the excitement?

Could it be that I am a jinx to my kids’ sporting teams, so they win when I am gone?

Could it be that God knows my heart and blood pressure can’t handle close, nail-biting games?

Could it be that when I am not present, my son is spared a mountain of embarrassment from his extremely verbal mother and is able to concentrate better on the game?

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s more or less a combination of all three.

But what a football season. Wow. What a rollercoaster. Both my boys won their championship midget football games this season, and I am so proud of them.

This year Joe was on fire. Somebody really lit a fire under Joe’s butt and man was it fun to watch him play. Granted, this didn’t carry over to his running at practice – the boy almost always finished last. As a seventh grader, Joe weighs in at 171 pounds and stands about 5’6’’. He outweighed everybody else on his Assurity B team by at least 20 pounds. Yes, he was a double dot, which means he weighed enough that he could only play on the line, and only on either offense or defense. At the first weigh-in of the season they slapped those two green dots on the back of his helmet, and that was the end of that. The boy has always been well-fed, although he did slim down a little during football conditioning. I told him that he should strip his equipment off and try to weigh in again. Maybe he could get down to 165 and be a single dot so he could play both offense and defense. His answer: “Seriously Mom?” And that was the end of that. Clearly he wasn’t giving up his nachos or ice cream to play on the offensive line.

And whoever decided to put him on defense, well, it was a good choice. He would get down in his stance with one hand poised on the ground and one hand up behind him and just launch himself into the other team when the ball was hiked. And he hit HARD. Imagine 171 pounds of nice-boy pent-up-fury being unleashed on some unwitting chubby seventh grader. Joe said his job was to wear down the linemen on the other team. He would smack them hard and tire them out, then his coaches would trade him out for a skinnier kid who would sneak through and get a bit sack for our team on the next play. And when Joe wasn’t tiring them out, he would take a couple guys on the offensive line at a time. I told him that must mean he is tough. He said, no, it just meant he took up more space.

I know I am biased, but I thought he looked pretty tough for a 12-year-old. Numerous times Joe would break though the offensive line into the back field. He said during one game, he had his hand on the quarterback five times, right as the quarterback was throwing the ball.  He sacked the kicker one time; but another one of his players had a facemask call on the play, so it was all for nothing. But I’m counting it as a sack, none the less.

Joe improved so much as the season progressed this year. Every game he looked forward to taking down the other linemen, hitting people hard, and trying to get a quarterback sack. In fact, he said he looked forward to the weeknights that he had practice. He told me that he anticipated taking out all his frustrations on the practice field, hitting someone hard and making himself feel better.

He also was pretty good about getting pumped up for the games. He had one game he was really pumped up for. It was the semi-final game in the B division. Evidently Assurity’s quarterback was looking a little too good, and maybe getting a little too big. The coaches for the other team told our coaches earlier in the season that “our day was coming.” The other coaches told the officials they wanted our quarterback weighed in. The boy must have eaten a second sandwich for lunch, and was one and a half pounds over the limit to play quarterback. I’m sure the other team thought they had this one in the bag. What they didn’t realize was that Assurity’s second string had been getting a lot of play time the last couple of games. They also didn’t realize they made our boys MAD. They were super pumped up. They hit HARD. The first series that the other team had the ball, we stopped them in three plays, blocked their punt and ran it in for a touchdown. Our team received two 15 yard penalties after that play for our coaches running out on the field and excessive celebration. And it was all downhill for them from then on. Joe said he hit the other players so hard his coach asked him “Where did that come from?” and when our over-the-weight-limit quarterback was playing on the defensive line, he sacked their quarterback. One of our lineman talked a little smack then, and said, “How’d that extra one a half pounds feel?”

I missed the last game, the championship game. But I think it was God’s way of saving my blood pressure. I couldn’t have taken it. Joe’s team ended up winning the game 6-0 in double overtime. I usually sit by another loud mom. (Her son is the second-string quarterback.) We yell and cheer so loud that sometimes parents from the other team move away from us – maybe even some parents from our own team too. Mandy sat by my friend this last game. Mandy said she was jumping up and down and screaming, especially when her son caught a big interception. I can only imagine I would have been right there with her. Just think of all the embarrassment Joe was saved. Oh the horror.

Joe’s game wasn’t the only game I am sad I missed. Rick coached the C team for Assurity. They had only one loss during the season, which they avenged a week earlier in the semi-final game. They played Union Bank C in the championship, and evidently dominated during the whole game. That’s pretty awesome because Rick was told that the other team’s coaches had been scouting his team and video taping them the last couple of weeks. They even had the players watching the video of Assurity’s plays. Wow. And these are 6^th and 7^th graders?

I’m so proud of my boys. But now their football season is over. Rick is thinking he will coach again next year, then take a couple years off when Joe gets to high school. In fact, he may take next year off, too. He just isn’t sure. The freshmen and reserve football games are generally on Tuesday nights, and those are midget football practice nights. Also, Mandy plays volleyball on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He didn’t get to see many of her games this season. And if she makes a team again next year (which is not an easy task at Southwest), he wants to be able to see her play, as well.

The kids will only be in high school for a few years. And they will only play high school sports a handful of years, as well. There will be plenty of time to coach midget football when our kids are through school. I suggested he could just assistant coach, but he says no. He wants to run things the way he wants to do it. He doesn’t want anyone telling him what to do. Perhaps I know where Joe gets his stubborn attitude. And here all along he’s been blaming it on my flat-head German heritage. Clearly I’ve got an apology coming.

And sports go on. Now it is time to get ready for basketball season. Hopefully Joe will do a little running before basketball starts. I don’t want any puking this season. He still has a school volleyball tournament he plays in at the end of October. That will be entertaining. It’s the first time he will play without his big sister. I don’t envision him taking her place, blocking at the net.

And Mandy finishes up her volleyball season this week. The Lincoln city Reserve tournament is tonight. Although they can beat any of the other Reserve teams in town when they are “on,” I predict we will get second or third. But you never know. It depends what team shows up. It depends if they make their serves and don’t get frazzled. It also depends on whether or not the boyfriends show up to watch. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog.

Thank heavens we don’t have to worry about that with boys and football. Boys are never affected by girls watching in the stands…right?

Shirts For Sale

When you have a child go from grade school to high school, you know there is going to be a difference in the amount of money you spend day to day. And if that child is a daughter, you know that amount may be astronomical.

But no one ever warned me it would be on t-shirts.

I knew we would spend money at the Buckle. No high school girl can survive without Miss Me, Rock Star, and BKE. At least that’s what my daughter believes. Especially at Von Maur High, whoops, I mean Southwest High School. And we put Daddy’s credit card to good use. Daddy would, of course, want her to have a new white leather jacket. Yeah, someone is around her little finger.

I knew we would be depositing loads of money into her lunch account. Somehow she doesn’t have time to eat breakfast at home. And who can survive without a flavored water to get her through the day? I know she drinks several of these a day, because they multiply in her bedroom every evening. We have a water bottle infestation problem.

I knew we would have to pay for sports passes and athletic shoes, and green practice spanx, and SilverHawk crested ankle braces, and ugly black mid-calf athletic socks, as well as all those other must-haves. You know you can’t be the only person on the team who doesn’t wear Birkenstocks between the locker room and the practice gym. Yes, God is laughing at me, paying me back for all the things I just had to have in high school.

But t-shirts? Really? I wasn’t aware of was how much money I would be sending to school every week just to buy t-shirts. There is always a new t-shirt everyone just has to have.

For example, the first week of school everyone was encouraged to buy these plain orange t-shirts to wear to the first football game of the season. The SilverHawks played the Gators, and the student section was encouraged to go “Gator Hunting” in these orange t-shirts. The student section was glaringly orange with camo sprinkled in here and there.

The next week, or else later that same week, she “had to” buy a SilverHawk’s nest t-shirt. The logos were glow-in-the-dark. The plan was to turn off the lights at the rally so they would all be matchers. Or maybe they were all just supposed to glow in the dark at the next home game. I don’t know. But somehow we ended up dishing out money for another shirt.

And that doesn’t begin to encompass all the sports t-shirts she “has to” have. All the girls on the reserve volleyball team got matching purple warm-up t-shirts with their coach. They are super cool. They have their name and number on the back, and a big volleyball with all the teammates’ first names and numbers on the front. They will be great keepsakes someday. So that’s another one we had to fold and add to the pile.

And the orders keep coming. A few weeks ago it was “Sideline Sweetie” t-shirts with the boyfriend’s name and football number on the back of the t-shirt. Yeah, I said boyfriend, actually now ex-boyfriend. But I’m not allowed to talk about it. (What kind of boy breaks up with a girl a week before Homecoming, asks another girl to the dance, and then texts the first girlfriend two hours before the dance to make sure she isn’t going with a date? It’s the same kind of boy who texts and asks where she is during the dance and then interrupts her the only time she dances with another boy at the dance to tell her that he really needs to talk to her. Oops, I guess I talked it.)

Besides, I think she is considering if she will sell the Sweetie t-shirt on Craig’s list to the lowest bidder. (Yes, I said lowest.) My suggestion would be to sign the shirt and then pass it along to the next girlfriend, and continue it down the line until the end of the football season. Then the boy can take it home and hang it on the wall as a nice girlfriend trophy piece. Oh the drama of teenage romance.

Yes, that was a lovely waste of $16. Now there’s a new boyfriend and he says she is not allowed to wear the ex-boyfriend’s t-shirt. This one we like. This boy doesn’t lie or cheat. Actually he may dote on her as much as her daddy. Oops, I talked about it again.

Clearly someone is making a bucket load of money at Southwest in t-shirt paraphernalia.  I’m not exactly sure how you get in on this racket. It’s not necessarily high school sponsored clothing. The sports shirts are ordered by one of the team mom’s. The Sweetie t-shirts came through some casual girls group, who by the way, have their own Facebook chat group. That could be a blog all on its own.

I think it would be cool someday to make a quilt out of all these high school t-shirts. It would be better than sitting in the back of the closet or taking up prime drawer real estate. I think, however, I’ll skip the Sweetie t-shirt. I think her volleyball friends may have plans for that shirt anyway. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, except, perhaps, that of her best girlfriends.

 

I'm Not Ready

I don’t think I’m ready for this. High school. Volleyball. Turning 15. Cars. Can’t we go back to grade school?

Life just keeps marching on. Next week summer vacation ends and the kids go back to school.

Joe will be in 7^th grade at St. Marks Lutheran. It will be his first year at a school without his sister to watch out for him. Of course, as a 171-pound, 12-year-old linebacker, I don’t think he needs his sister’s protection anymore. (Although I did find a note in his backpack this summer signed by several of the little girls at his school saying they were in love with him. He said the little kindergartener who gave it to him couldn’t stop giggling. I guess he is pretty much on his own with that one from now on.)

His dad bought him a weight lifting bench a few weeks ago with all the dumbbells, bars, and free weights. He’s been building up the muscles in his arms and pushing up his “reps.” He was showing me how to properly use the bar this week. He thought it was about the funniest thing ever to see his mom try to keep up with him. I pretty much learned my lesson there the next day. My shoulders may never forgive me.

Joe can’t do much weight training on his legs just yet. He’d been limping around this summer and complaining about his knees. If he would play catcher an inning or two during baseball, he would actually cry in the dugout about the pain in his knees. The doctor says he has Osgood Schaulters disease, which has to do with one of the tendons or ligaments pulling away from the tibia where it is attached. So his knees have been all inflamed and now he has to ice them every night. He also wears Kinisio tape on his knees (just like all those Olympians with the stuff slapped all over their backs, legs, or shoulders). The doctor says it happens to kids around 10-15 when they are going through a growth spurt, and may last for a couple years. I’m sure he will milk it for all its worth, asking me to go down to his bedroom to get his socks for him the next year or two.

But it doesn’t seem to affect him when he is pushing the sled at football practice. He still does a number on that thing and I’m pretty sure his football coach is pretty excited he is going to play down on the B team again. He may have a double dot on the back of his helmet and only get to play on the line for either the offense or defense, but he finally gets to play with some of the boys his own age. This will be the first year he isn’t moved up with the older boys because of his size. It’s fun to go and listen to the boys joke around with one another while they are in line for the next drill. He has a bunch of friends on his team and I’m not so afraid that he will get hurt. This year it will be some other mom who says “oh no” when her boy has to line up across the line from Joe. Watch out for those choppy feet.

Rick says every once in a while at football practice (yes, he is coaching yet again for the Assurity midget football C team) he will hear them yell at Krush from across the practice field. Generally it’s to tell him good job – way to give the quarterback three more seconds – and stuff like that. And sometimes it’s to tell him to run a little harder during the sprints. Yes, running is a lineman’s nemesis. But Rick says Joe is the only one on the practice field who doesn’t have his whole last name written on the front of his helmet. He is just “Krush,” which I find pretty appropriate for a double-dot linebacker. Rick says it takes him back to his own good ole days (although I’m pretty sure old skin-and-bones Rick was never a linebacker).

And then there is Mandy. I heard someone once say “you are only as happy as your unhappiest child.” I completely understand that statement, although I can’t say Mandy is unhappy. She always has a ready smile. I could say she is pretty anxious and stressed out, however.

Next week starts with volleyball tryouts. And volleyball tryouts start with running a timed mile. Normally, I would not be anxious about this. However she ran the mile a week ago at the end of her kickboxing class. She took half a minute off her time from earlier this summer, but she puked at the end of it. I told her she cannot puke at volleyball tryouts. We want the coach to notice her, but not for puking on her shoe.

To be honest, I just want volleyball tryouts over and done with. If she’s going to play volleyball, let’s play volleyball. If she is not going to make the team, let’s get on with life. The girl has been working her butt off all summer. She did summer training at the Magic volleyball club twice a week. She went to kickboxing four times a week at 7am in the morning during her summer “vacation.” She did individual training sessions for an hour once a week. She played on a sand volleyball team. She also played on a Southwest High School recreational soccer team two nights a week. Sometimes the games were played in the 100+ temperature. Those were the worst. She even went to the weight room two or three times a week to lift weights. (Although I don’t know if that was for the weight training or the boy watching.)

She did get a couple of special treats. (Yes, prepare for the proud mom bragging.) She got asked to play on a Greater Nebraska volleyball team with a bunch of other Southwest girls. They played at the junior varsity level. Southwest had two junior varsity teams and the team she was on won all their games only losing one set the whole season. She also got asked to be a demonstrator at the Nebraska Coaches Association summer clinic along with four other Southwest girls and five North Star girls. The high school coaches met at North Star high school and they brought in college coaches to show them new drills and techniques. The schools can’t use past high school players because it gives girls an unfair advantage with these college coaches, so they have to use future freshman. Mandy said she did pretty well and had a lot of fun doing it.

But now tryouts are around the corner and volleyball keeps playing with her mind. She had volleyball camp a week or two ago, right after church camp. She was told to go to the upper grade camp with the older girls. But, she was pretty tired after church camp. She said she did OK, but they had her on the middle court the first day of camp, and the lower court the second day. She hopes that means she didn’t blow it. She doesn’t know if that means she will be on the Reserve team or the freshman team. She just really hopes to be on a team. Her club coach told her he would like to see her on the Reserve team because she would get a lot of playing time. I pray he is right.

It’s super hard to sit back and watch your kid suffer and stress out. As a mom, you know what your kid is capable of – you’ve seen them do it. But you also have seen them psych themselves out and struggle. I wish I could do something to help. I just pray that all the hard work she has done this summer pays off. I just want her to see that if you work hard, you can reach your goals. Rick says that if she worked that hard this summer and only makes the freshman team, well then, that means she might not have even made a team had she not worked this summer on her skills. And if she doesn’t make a team, that’s God’s way of saving me from all the stress. Ack. I just wish it all was over.

And that’s just volleyball. This afternoon we are going to the Southwest open house. Mandy is nervous about finding her classes and getting the lock open on her locker when school starts. I think out of the dozen tries she only opened it twice on locker day last week. Perhaps she might want to keep all her books in her backpack, just in case.

But one thing I am definitely not worried about is Mandy making friends. Oh my goodness. When we went to locker days, she met one friend at the front door, and ended up walking around with a pack of girls she had met through various sports. She makes a lot of friends. When I introduced myself to someone’s dad at volleyball last night, we pointed out our daughters while they were running drills. After he pointed out his daughter, I said my daughter was Mandy, the one over there with the red hair. He said “Oh, of course, Mannnndddddyyyy.” That was nice. But I think the thing that I was most pleased about happened before the practice even started. Mandy was chatting it up in the middle of a group of friends on the bleachers, and there was a girl sitting by herself a couple of rows down. She looked scared to death to be there. I felt sorry for her because she obviously was nervous and shy. Everyone else was there with their friends, but she was there all alone. I didn’t have to feel bad for long. Mandy quickly noticed her and screeched “Hi Kaitlyn.” And before I knew it, she pulled her up with the other girls and Kaitlyn was made part of the group. I just love Mandy.

Everywhere we went at locker days, Mandy knew girls from volleyball. And when we went back to the commons area, a bunch of soccer girls were screechingly happy to see her there. Clearly she was acting her goofy self during summer soccer, just like she does at volleyball. I foresee a lot of screeching in her future. Boys – well that’s another story.

She has several boys who are her friends. Mandy texts back and forth with them wherever we go. She has no problem talking to regular boys. She makes friends with boys very easily. But boys who she likes, that’s another story. She may be strong and she may be intelligent, but she runs scared and stupid when a cute boy looks her way. Mandy does not chase boys. She is too afraid she might catch one. She would rather spend the rest of her life going to the movies with her mother than risk saying the wrong thing to a boy she likes. She gets sad because she says lots of boys look at her, but boys never come over and talk to her. She says no one will ever ask her out on a date, no less to Homecoming. Rick, of course, says there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is just the way he likes it. Forget about the concealed carry permit. He is wearing his guns holstered at his sides, out where all the high school boys can see them. Evidently Lincoln, Nebraska has re-entered the days of the Wild West.

Rick does make me laugh. But sometimes I don’t understand him. He is over-protective when it comes to boys, but he just went out and bought Mandy a school car. WHAT? When did we start thinking she would start learning how to drive? I knew the Alzheimer’s was starting to kick in, but I didn’t know he had completely lost his mind.

In about two months Mandy will turn 15. Yes, 15. I remember when I was 15. Let’s just say I am concerned. Hopefully Mandy is nothing like her mother. I remember dating at least two boys who had motorcycles when I was that age, just because I liked motorcycles. 15. Oh dear.

So, I intend to do a lot of praying the next several months. Praying for volleyball tryouts, easily opened locker locks, and for the DMV to magically be shut down in October when we go for a learner’s permit.

No matter what happens with Mandy, I’ve always got my Joe to lean on. He’s always there to lend me some sensible words of wisdom.

But, alas, that too may soon come to an end. When I came home from church camp this year I was telling Joe how boy- and girl-crazy the kids all were his age. I told him he would have laughed. All the seventh grade girls were following around his best friend Ben, admiring the muscles he developed over the summer at swim meets and calling him “hot.” But instead of laughing, Joe’s response was “Really. How much does he bench press?” When I said I didn’t know, Joe said, “Well may be I ought to go to camp next year.” Noooooooooo, not my Joe.

Just wake me when it’s over. I’m totally not ready for this.

Moving On

Sometimes time has a way of flicking you in the face, and then smacking you on the backside on your way out the door.

I’m not really old. I know that. But I went for a walk on campus at UNL this week (waiting for a carload of kids at science camp). As I walked away from my car, I noticed how it stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the high density of out-of-county license plates. Not because I had Lancaster plates. It was the only vehicle on the whole street with one of those sports window stickers in the back. Clearly no one else parked on this street has to worry about getting someone else’s water bottle ready for practice or about losing their voice screaming like a soccer mom. Yes, my car has been branded, as well as its driver. These schoolers might drive as if they are wild and free, but I have all-wheel drive, seat heaters, and more insurance. Knowing what I know now, I’ll take the later. A warm backside speaks for itself.

I noticed construction workers in the lot at the Alpha Phi sorority. One of these days I’ll get up the courage to go inside and take a look. I wonder if they still have the same diagonally vacuumed green carpet. As I passed the Sig Ep house, I saw a long-haired “dude” coming out of the house to take a run. I’m not sure how long that guy would have survived in Rick’s day. Maybe he was rushed for his grade point average.

I got myself a drink at the Juicestop and wandered around campus, attempting to recall the names of the buildings as I went by. I remembered Sheldon, the Business Admin building, Hamilton, Oldfather, Burnett, and Andrews. As I was checking out the new doors (probably not that new) on Love library, I walked past a group of students obviously on their new student initiation day. You can always tell the new student groups because one kid is always walking backwards out front while a confused-looking group follows, consulting their maps.

I remembered how nervous and intimidated I was on my student initiation day. I came from a class of 54 and we didn’t have to leave the building, or the main floor, to find our classes. When I did the math, I remembered I graduated in 1992. And this is 2012. Yikes. That is 20 years people. It can’t be 20 years since I graduated from college. I still don’t feel like it can be 20 years since I graduated from high school, although we had that reunion years ago.

It was scary, going from Geneva High to UNL. It also was scary going from my little Lutheran school class of 5 to that class of 54. And now my baby, Mandy, is going from a little Lutheran school class of 2 to a class of around 500. Talk about culture shock.

In May Mandy went to a new student day at Lincoln Southwest high school. I dropped her off at the door and texted her to make sure she was OK. Even though she is registered as a student there (I later called the registrar to check) they didn’t have her name in their records at the door. So they randomly assigned her to a group and stuck a sticky “Hello my name is…” nametag on her for the day. The rest of the kids had cool lanyard nametags. She was feeling lost and scared because she didn’t know what to do. But somehow she made it through the day. I, of course, wanted to park my car and storm inside and get it all sorted out. But I was told in no uncertain terms by my 14-year-old daughter via text that I was not allowed to enter the building. That would be an embarrassment worse than death. (The same sort of embarrassment of my going out on to the court or field if Joe had a basketball or football injury.) So I sat on pins and needles the rest of the day waiting to see if everything turned out alright.

The first thing she said when she got in the car was “Mom, I’m scared.” She said the school has three floors of classrooms, and they are sectioned in alphabetic groups. She isn’t sure how she will possibly make it to her classes in time, especially when all 2,000 students are there.

But it wasn’t all bad news. She said the salad bar is fabulous. There are no cute boys in her class that she could see. However, there were several really cute Juniors who were looking her way. Rick was overjoyed. Of course only half of the future freshmen were there that afternoon. I’m sure all the cute future-freshmen football players came with the other half in the morning. Besides, we aren’t going to have to worry about boys. Mandy is going to live her first year in high school, completely celibate, devoting her life to studies, sports, and the theater. At least this is what Rick keeps telling himself to get through the summer. Twenty years may slow you down, but I don’t think it makes you stupid.

Anyways, Rick and I are hoping that her volleyball will help her with the transition. This is what we’ve been devoting all these evenings and weekends to accomplishing. We hope she can make a high school team so she can make friends. Most volleyball girls we know work hard, get decent grades, are pretty self-confident, and like to hang out together. We want her to have a circle of friends that she can hang out with, who do their school work and don’t do drugs. We don’t care if she makes the freshmen team, the reserve team, or the junior varsity. In fact, we are OK if she doesn’t make a team at all. Just as long as she meets some nice girls at tryouts.

She already knows a couple of dozen girls from club volleyball, basketball, and soccer. She’s made several friends from the open gym times at Southwest this May. The girls who are going to tryout for volleyball were invited to come and scrimmage with the girls on the team. What we didn’t know at the time was that the coaches were watching and picking out a few select girls they wanted to play with the older girls in a summer league. It’s a big group of girls – about 50 – who the coaches have to evaluate in a short amount of time.

So I picked Mandy up from one of the open gym sessions. She comes out of the school looking grim and slams her bag in the back seat and then drops into the front seat next to me. She flings a paper at me with a frown. I look it over and I can’t figure out why she is handing me this paper with times and dates. She says, “You don’t know what that means, do you mom?” She says, “I was selected with eight other girls to play with the junior varsity this summer.” Yes, I admit it, I screamed like a little girl. Mandy was pretty pleased. She is such an actress.

So yes, we are happy for Mandy. Volleyball is going well. It’s been a while since I’ve written in my blog. Mandy played with the other team Magic Umi girls in semi-nationals in Minneapolis. Their volleyball team finished ninth out of 72 gold teams. That is just incredible. Some of the teams had girls who were more than 6 feet tall. Mandy had a huge block at the net against one of them. That was fantastic.

Because the girls finished in the top 10, the parents got together and had a party. We rented a limo for the girls to ride around Lincoln while the parents enjoyed several refreshments. The girls had great fun cruising O Street and stopping for ice cream.

We’ve had a lot of great memories the last month. Along with her volleyball accomplishments, Mandy’s spirit soccer team, the Kroo, finished first in their league of 13- to 15-year-olds. This is the first time their team ever finished first. They finally beat the Beatrice team, their nemesis. Hopefully we will soon have a party for the soccer girls, as well. Mandy also did well at the WELS track meets. At her first track meet, she got a fourth place (the 200m), a third (triple jump), a second (shot put), and a first (discus). At the second track meet she got two firsts in discus and shot put, and a second place in the triple jump. Joe also achieved his first track ribbon. He got third in the shot put. He may not be fast, but he isn’t built like a Mack truck for nothing.

We also recently celebrated Mandy getting confirmed with a big party and celebrated her graduation from 8^th grade. There are going to be a lot of lower graders and a few upper grade boys who may actually cry next year. Poor Trevor. He will be so alone without Mandy next year when he is in the eighth grade. Sometimes he was more of one of the girls than Mandy was. She will miss her Trevorbear.

We are excited for Mandy and the upcoming year. She is going to be doing a lot of prep for volleyball this summer. She will do some individual training, some club Magic tryout training, and even some kickboxing classes with the other Southwest volleyball girls at 7am. She may have more muscles than Rick by the end of the summer.

But while she works so hard to get ready for high school, I feel as if she is clinging even harder to our family. She would rather go to a movie with her mom or a Saltdogs game with her dad than plan an outing with friends. I am trying to cherish these moments this summer, because I am sure it will be a few years until I am not the most embarrassing person on this earth (although sometimes I take second to Rick.) High school can be a big game changer.

But I’ve always got Joe. He is not afraid to dance around like a goon and he always has the best one-liners. Today he was watching SpongeBob. I asked if we really had to watch SpongeBob. He said yes mom, he had to get in a half hour of SpongeBob every day to kill a few brain cells. Otherwise he would be too smart for the rest of us. Oh Joe. A couple nights ago we were talking about something gross at the dinner table, and Joe said “You guys have to stop talking about that or you are going to make me lose my appetite. Oh…no…wait. There it is.” That’s Joe. Not a lot can separate him from a rack of smoked ribs.

But, back to feeling old. I can remember how I felt going to high school and college like it was yesterday. And then again something always comes along to remind you how much time has past. Rick has been having some chest pains the past week or two. He went to the doctor and they did the whole EKG and the stress test. Everything looks just fine. He doesn’t appear to have any heart issues. His cholesterol is back up a little, but eating seven tacos at the Saltdogs Taco Tuesday night probably doesn’t help. It’s back to the chicken and fish for him. Just in time for fishing season.

It puts things in perspective. The last two months we have been running so much between the kids’ sports, work, church, and the apartment house, that we really haven’t spent much quality time together. And with Mandy going to high school, there are only a few years left before she is moving on.

So we decided to buckle down, find a week this summer, and take the kids to Maui. Ever since we went in December, we decided we wanted to take the kids. So we just booked it. And we can’t wait.

I’ll be stocking up for sunblock for Joe. And Mandy is already assembling her bikini-laden wardrobe. Aren’t we glad she is going to live the next year devoted to her studies? Besides, there aren’t any cute, muscular Hawaiian boys in swim suits just waiting at your beck and call to set up your beach umbrella and bring you pool drinks. It’s just the vacation Rick needs. Good thing the doctor gave him the all clear.

We're Number Two

We are number two. Woohoo!

We seem to be saying this quite a bit lately. (And I don’t mean that in a potty mouth way. I feel I have to clarify for those people who still think like a 12-year-old boy. In this case number two means second place. That is all. Bunch of 12-year-olds.) Mandy’s soccer team started off the fall season coming in second in their league. Joe’s basketball team just earned second place in their league. Mandy’s club volleyball team has come in second in two of their tournaments. And just recently the school basketball team that both kids played on came in second in their division.

So we have been number two quite a bit this year. I suppose some people would be bothered by not being first, but we actually don’t mind. I know, I know, Mandy’s friend Megan would say that second place is just the first loser. (She doesn’t take after her father at all. Ha.)

But we like second place. True, there is somebody better than you, but at least you are not last. For example, Joe’s basketball team started the season 1 and 4. It was no fun to be on the bottom and lose all those games. But the boys battled back and worked their way into the second place spot in their 6^th grade division of Spirit basketball. The last game of the season they beat a team by more than 20 points; this same team beat them by four points in the beginning of the season.

Mandy’s club volleyball team played in two elite Gold tournaments and didn’t win a match. However, they played in two other tournaments and came in second. The last tournament they played in, they won the consolation round. Mandy played fantastic. She only missed one serve the whole day and had tons of great hits. But, well, I have a lot of issues. (Although I don’t have any issues with any specific players.) I am keeping my mouth shut on this one. I will say, however, I am confused why the team takes out its two best passers when they get to the back row just because they are middle hitters. But I don’t evidently understand volleyball. Sooooo, moving on.

We were disappointed that Mandy’s fall soccer team came in second in the Spirit league for the 13-15 year olds. We sure thought they had first place locked up. But that is the way sports go. Oh well. Spring soccer starts in a week or two and we are returning with a lot of the same players. Should be another awesome season. I just hope Mandy doesn’t get any yellow cards. She has spent her basketball season perfecting her shoulder shove, knocking other players to the ground. I will stay on the sideline with my mouth shut and my fingers crossed. If it really gets bad, I’ll just watch from my car. I’m good at that. I spent most of two seasons watching from my car when they tried her as goalie. Mandy is NOT a goalie. Yikes.

I must say that we were pretty thrilled that the kids’ school basketball team came in second in their division during the recent school tournament. It is a NELHS tournament, hosted by the WELS Lutheran high school in Waco. A bunch of schools in Nebraska, and one from Kansas, play in either the A pool or the B pool in a two-day tournament.

The bigger schools have more than one team in the tournament. For example, one team might contain their eighth graders, another team has their seventh graders, and another team might have fifth and sixth graders. Their bigger teams usually play in the A pool. Their smaller teams play in the B pool, with the little schools, like our school.

The smaller schools generally only have enough players for one team. For example, our team had nine players, ranging from third grade through eighth grade. Mandy was our eighth grader. Plus we had three sixth grade boys and the rest of the team was made up of third and fifth graders. Our sixth grade boys are fairly decent basketball players, but we really were blessed with Mandy’s height under the basket to help get those rebounds and to attempt to “post up.” (The entire season Rick, the assistant coach, kept yelling at Mandy to “post up.” She finally yelled back at him during a game to quit yelling that because she doesn’t even know what that means. I’m fairly sure she never did figure out what that meant. Don’t ask me. I don’t know either.)

I should mention that earlier this year our school won the NELHS volleyball tournament in the B division. However, that was because we had our ace in the hole, Miss Club Volleyball Gold team middle hitter. Mandy was doing her spot serving and had a few plays at the net. She didn’t do any hitting, probably because no one else on the team knew how to set the ball. But that’s OK.

Being good at volleyball is one thing. Being good at basketball is an entirely different thing. Being able to jump and being tall is a good thing for both sports. But volleyball is not much of a contact sport. In basketball you have to be willing to box out and sometimes get other people’s sweat on you. This is not something Mandy does well. She often comes to the bench saying “Ewwwww, she dripped on me.” Plus, you have to be willing to get in there and “throw some ‘bows.” This is something that Mandy excels at. We were not aware of this until just this year. I guess all those seasons of pushing and shoving on the soccer field are coming in handy.

Mandy’s ability to push and shove were some of the highlights of the tournament for me. She always wanted to go up against the biggest or tallest player on the other team. She was always backing her butt into them, moving them out of the way so one of our boys could dribble in and take a shot. She also liked to fight for the rebounds. It was hilarious when she was the tallest one out there and she would come down from the basket with the ball, and then just hold it above her head, well out of the reach of everyone else on the court. That was fantastic. You go Big Red.

She did get a little rough, on occasion. For example, during two games she had to sit out a good portion of the third quarter because she had four fouls. Sometimes she couldn’t help but do her volleyball moves. She would try to swat the ball out of the other player’s hands, bringing her hand down in a volleyball hit. Most of the time this resulted in a foul. And one time she used her soccer shove to keep another player from dribbling in to make a layup. Unfortunately she used it on a little girl. When Big Red and the little girl made impact, the little girl ended up on the floor, crying. This was not good. Mandy ended up on the bench with tears in her own eyes. But when Mandy came back in, she ran over to the other bench first, hugged the girl, and told her she was sooooo sorry.

Mandy was quite a character. During most of her games she was cheering and joking on the court. She would always come out screaming at the beginning of the games, and joked with her opponent before the jump ball. A few of the refs got a kick out of the way she would ask what basket she was supposed to shoot at whenever the second half started. She didn’t want a repeat of an early wrong basket episode down in Plymouth. Let’s just say it is a good thing she is not an ace shot.

But while Mandy enjoyed “performing” out on the court, Joe was Mr. Slow and Steady wins the race. He didn’t run until he puked, which is fantastic. He used his keen football “catlike” skills under the basket to seal us a ton of rebounds. He is an awesome rebounder. It’s something he excels at on both of his basketball teams. And he keeps a cool head under the basket, and knows how to throw out his elbows and pivot to ward off the other team, until he can pass the ball to the point guard and jog back down the court.

I’m super proud of Joe. He doesn’t like to shoot the ball, but he forced himself to take some shots, sometimes dribbling into the basket to make them. He got fouled quite a bit and ended up shooting a lot of free throws. Unfortunately this is something he does not excel at. Oh well, there’s always next year for that. He also ended up on the floor quite a bit. The day after the tournament his knees were one solid black and blue bruise. He even wore a hole through his shorts getting “court burn” on one knee. Yikes. He still has the giant scab from that one.

And of course it was mild mannered Joe that caused the biggest drama for our team. At the final championship match, Joe tripped and caught the other guy’s knee with his nose. He laid on the court sobbing, and yelling that it hurts, it hurts. And yet I didn’t run out there. I stayed in my seat. He wasn’t dead, and I am only allowed to come out on the court over Joe’s dead body. (Because it is a fate worse than death for your mom to run out on the court. Once you’re dead, you are evidently beyond caring.) Rick did run over to him, which is OK because Rick is one of the coaches. Rick said he was afraid to pull back Joe’s hands, afraid he would see tons of blood, a smashed nose and broken teeth. But, it was just a bloody nose. We don’t think he broke his nose. It wasn’t crooked, although he said he felt it crack when it happened. Well, chicks dig sports scars, at least that’s what Coach Reed always says.

So the tournament overall was pretty exciting. We were hoping to win a couple games -- at least more than one game. We were expecting to finish somewhere in the middle, probably in the lower half. Let’s just say we weren’t getting our hopes up.

We played three games the first day. We won the first game against Plymouth. Then we played the second Good Shepherd team from Omaha. We didn’t think we would win; the game was pretty close. But somehow we finished the game with a one-point lead. Poor little Michael Hemphill. I think Mandy hacked him under the basket on several occasions. But yet he hugged her after the game, so it must not have been too painful. The third game of the day we knew we couldn’t win. Waco beat us by about 15 or 16 points earlier in the season, and we were expecting they would really kill us, considering it was our third day of the game and we really only had five or six kids that would play. Waco beat us by about 15 again. But we figure we were lucky. At least they didn’t beat us about 70-something to 4, like they did another team earlier in the season. Painful.

The next day I think we started as the third cede. We had to play Mt. Olive from Overland Park, KS. We looked terrible. They were ahead by 12 points in the third quarter and Mandy had four fouls. Things were dismal. Then somehow it turned around. Somehow we got a few steals and lay ups and started to catch up. Soon we were within a few points and it was close to the end of the fourth quarter. Then Joe put in a shot that put us up by one point. There were thirty seconds left and we had the ball. Joe and Braden just kept possession of the ball and passed it back and forth. Before the other team could steal or foul, the game was over and we won. We couldn’t believe it. And Mandy didn’t foul out. Miracles never cease. There was a thunderous amount of screaming and jumping and hollering. But enough about the moms, the kids were pretty happy too.

We played the second cede next, a Central Lutheran team from the Norfolk area. We didn’t think we could win, but we took the lead and kept it the whole game. In fact, we pressed the other team. It was incredible. Somehow we were going to the championship game. Of course it was against Waco again. Of course we knew we couldn’t win. But at least we knew we were getting a trophy. It was such an incredible accomplishment that it didn’t matter.

So we played Waco – and we got killed. We stayed within one point the first quarter. In fact we were ahead by a point every once and a while. We made Waco’s Coach Stern so concerned he had to actually take his jacket off. But then we lost momentum. I’m pretty sure our five starters were completely out of gas. Then Joe got injured and we kind of just folded. Mandy went the majority of the game without fouling. That was miraculous. However she had a big foul late in the game and I overheard her ask her dad if she could start using her fouls now. I noticed soon after she sat on the bench and the third graders went in. Evidently Rick wasn’t taking any chances.

Sure we got beat in the championship game, but the tournament overall was fantastic. Two trophies in one year. Wow. I think that is unheard of in all the years my kids have been at the school. Mandy and Joe are pretty proud they were able to earn two trophies for St. Marks. (Just don’t be expecting any trophies for track.) True, the second trophy is a lot smaller than the first. But it’s still exciting.

Yep, we’re excited about coming in second. It’s not a bad place to be. We’ve seen last place before. It is a bad place to be.

This weekend will be full of more sports. Joe has a MIT basketball tournament with his Spirit basketball team. Mandy is filling in as a sub for a Magic volleyball 17-year-old team on Sunday because it is short a couple players. Two more chances to come in number two? Who knows? One thing is for sure. Silver is our color.

                                      Our team intro at NELHS championship game

Wax On, Wax Off

If I am ever feeling a desire to count my blessings, I can always find an abundant list after I visit my Grandma’s apartment house.

I’m not saying everyone in the building that my Grandma owns is financially challenged – some are just starting out. But somehow the cops show up about 50-75% of the times Rick and I come to clean. So I think I’m safe to say that several of the residents are severely legally challenged.

If you do the math, that’s a lot of uniformed visits -- especially when you consider we clean/mow the grounds twice a month, and clean out the occasional apartment once every couple of months.

Rick and I take care of the building for my 90-year-old grandmother who has alzheimers. We take care of the hallways and laundry, mow, collect the laundry quarters, clean apartments that are vacated, and do general maintenance around the place. We fortunately don’t have to collect rent or find new tenants. Grandma has a manager that takes care of the money matters. We just do the grunt work, literally.

I got a pretty good idea of what we were in for when we were cleaning our second apartment a year or two ago. I asked Rick why the apartment door didn’t fit and had so much foam stripping around the edging. “Um, yeah,” he said, “that would be because the cops had to kick in the door so many times on the last tenant.” I guess the couple that lived there had domestic abuse issues that involved several 911 calls. So it’s that kind of neighborhood.

The apartment house is a real challenge. The family is in the process of selling the building, so along with keeping it clean and maintained, we need to watch our costs because we don’t want to sink a bunch of money into a building that they will hopefully soon be selling. But they’ve been selling it for quite a while. There’s not a huge market for a six-plex apartment in one of the lower-rent areas in Lincoln -- especially one that has such an interesting range of tenants.

I am not supposed to go to the apartment house by myself. One of the tenants is on the sex offenders list, so Rick always comes along when I clean the hallways and apartments. He likes to tinker around with mowing, raking, branch trimming, light bulb replacement, and any other random thing that someone could spend countless hours working on. Before we can leave, there’s always one more thing he has to do. Ugh. Good thing I’ve got solitaire on my phone. And just so you know, looks do not kill. In fact, Rick is pretty good at being totally oblivious to them.

Besides the sex offender (the one tenant we know will never leave because he will have a devil of a time find another place to live), we know pretty much everybody who lives in the place. We are relieved that one of the tenants has moved out, the one who would steal electricity by running an extension cord from his apartment into the laundry room. Yes, we are well aware of why a tenant might want to camouflage their electricity consumption. That is why we are glad they are gone.

We are currently cleaning out the apartment of one of his neighbor/friends who had a gang insignia scribbled on the woodwork right outside his apartment door. We aren’t sure if the move was caused by the graffiti, but it’s good riddance. Unfortunately magic eraser doesn’t seem to do the trick. It may require the use of the electric sander. Oh shucks, Rick might have to break out his power tools.

Actually this apartment is the fourth apartment we’ve had to clean in the last four months. The manager fills the apartments about as fast as we clean them. But oh boy, have we had some doozies. There is nothing more yucky than cleaning up after other people -- especially people who don’t plan on getting their deposit back.

Rick is getting to be an expert at repairing large holes in the drywall and I purchase my plastic gloves in bulk. If you don’t have to actually touch it with your bare skin and if you can kind of remove your thoughts from what you are cleaning, you can clean up about anything. Then you just throw those clothes away when you get home.

And we’ve cleaned up about everything. I won’t go into the list, because the list is long and gross. If I was to try to decide who was the worst renter we’ve cleaned up after, I think two renters might tie for the worst. One guy never cleaned. Never. And I’m certain he didn’t own a vacuum. There was black mold all over the ceiling of the bathroom, not to mention the black furry stuff growing in the shower. He liked rice (which we had to vacuum out of every drawer and cabinet), beans (which I had to scrape off the walls of his bedroom, really) and he liked fish. Not the nice filets you buy in the frozen department. He liked to clean his own fish. And the scales were everywhere: on the walls and the ceiling and the cabinets and the drawers. And fish scales do not come up easily. Yikes. Plus, he enjoyed his knives. He liked to stick them into the cabinet doors and the walls. The holes were lovely. They matched all the lovely holes he liked to punch in the doors in the apartment. I think we were able to patch two of the doors; most of the other doors we had to have a handyman cut to fit and stain to match the apartment. And he seemed like such a polite man. Yep, just lovely.

But it ties with a young woman who left her basement apartment abandoned. We weren’t able to get inside for a month after the electricity had been turned off. When the electricity goes off, bad things happen. Especially when you leave food in the fridge and you leave the toilet plugged up for a month. Needless to say, it was very, very bad. Plus, Rick had to repair a large hole in the wall in the kitchen that was just about the right size for someone to have been thrown into, about shoulder high. And if that wasn’t enough, she obviously had a dog. She left the dog’s shampoo under the bathroom sink and sprinkles of his food in the hall closet. Just delightful, especially for a pet-free apartment.

The new manager told Rick that this last apartment – the one we are cleaning now -- is going to be a hard one to get ready. Rick checked it out and said, “na, we’ve had much worse.” The guy left the place full of broken furniture and mattresses, old food in the fridge, and an incredible patchwork of stains in the carpet. It took the good part of an afternoon to take out all the furniture for three guys. But the beauty of the neighborhood is that you just leave the furniture out by the dumpster and it will be gone in 30 minutes. Sometimes it’s gone before you can make your “Free” sign to put on it. Fantastic.

I know, I know, I paint such a pretty picture of apartment ownership. But we do have parts of our caretaking that we enjoy.

There is always, ALWAYS something going on there. Like I said, the cops show up about 50-75% of the time we are there. Sometimes they are simply serving someone some papers. One time they were bringing home a little girl who lived with her dad and was out wondering the streets alone. I know, nice. One time I was cleaning the basement apartment and got a front row seat for an altercation. I was actually cleaning the front basement window blinds when a police car comes screaming up the street with the blue lights blazing. They pull up on the curb directly in front of me and go running into the house next door. I could almost hear “Bad boys, bad boys” booming over the air waves. I stood there for a minute wondering what was going on, and then decide I probably shouldn’t be standing by the window, just in case any shooting will be taking place. Eventually they bring somebody out and put them in the back seat. Cool. Another time Rick and I were cleaning the hallways when we realized we might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A girl and her family were moving her things out of one of the apartments. Apparently her boyfriend and his mother were not ready to move out just yet. It got a little intense and we quickly wrapped things up and got out of there before any shooting or fighting could begin. It’s just a laugh a minute.

Actually there are tenants that we really enjoy. There is a pair of Iraqi gentlemen who are SO meek and SO nice. I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of them when they first moved in. I was vacuuming in the hallway when one of the guys opened his door and started visiting with me. He asked me if I was there by myself. Whoa. Just whoa. I quickly told him that my large husband was just right outside the front door, mowing. I later realized that he was asking this because he was looking out for me. Rick has fixed a few things for them, and they invite him in to eat supper with them. They bring him a water bottle when he is out mowing in the summer. They are so nice. They told Rick that they moved to the United States to escape the jihad back home. We hope things work out for them. We always offer them first dibs to any furniture left in the apartments because they have been living without almost anything and sleeping on the floor. Super nice guys.

They make me laugh too. Apparently the sex offender and the gang member had an altercation in the hallway outside of the Iraqis’ door. The Iraqi gentlemen called the police and held their phone up to the crack in the door to let the 911 operator hear what was happening because they don’t speak English fluently. They then called the manager and said that someone had made a hole in the hallway wall that we might want to patch. The next time Rick and I went to the apartment, I checked the halls as I was vacuuming and didn’t see anything major, until, of course, I got to the very bottom of the stairs. A little hole, HA! There was a hole in the wall that reached from my ankles to above my shoulder. Someone evidently got thrown through the wall into the space under the stairs. And someone thought this tiny area under the stairs looked like a good place to sleep. So they moved in a blanket and a jacket and some other random items. It almost looked homey, as if you might want to curl up and take a nap. You just have to be sure you can sleep with one eye open.

Yep, you just don’t know what will happen next around that place. There is always something happening.

But, like I said, it makes me pause and count my blessings. First of all, I am grateful that Rick and I are able to house and feed our family. I am glad we have a yard for kids to play in with their dog. We are glad that we have never had a child returned to us after wandering alone in the street.

It makes me grateful for the invention of SOS pads and magic erasers. I am glad that Clorox bleach comes in big gallon jugs.

I am also grateful for the solid biceps I am building up from all the cleaning and wall washing I’ve been doing. (Rick never thinks the walls need painting. He always says we can just wash them. I’ll give you one guess who does the wall washing and who does the painting.) Granted, I may not be able to punch very hard if I ever need to defend myself. But, mind you, I can wax on and wax off with the best of them.

Presidents Day Classic

Some days I wonder who this person is, my 14-year-old daughter.

I always thought we were very alike, but I think I was wrong. True, we are similar in many ways. Between the two of us, there are never any awkward silences at our house. And who else would be my Dr. Who and Castle watching buddy? But while I enjoyed music and dance at her age, she is a lot more athletic than I ever was. And she has the never-quit mind of an athlete to match. Her determination astounds me.

Mandy’s volleyball team played at the Qwest Center this weekend in the President’s Day Classic. And they lost. Actually, they lost a lot.

Her team played traveling teams from Kansas City, Denver, Iowa City, and other cities in the Mid-West. It was an incredible assembly of girls in spandex shorts and ponytails. It was every teenage boy’s dream. There were 90-some volleyball courts setup in the Qwest Center and I heard there were more than 400 teams at the tournament in total. I think there were around 40 teams just in her 14-year age bracket. The sound of screaming girls and squeaking shoes was deafening. Volleyballs were flying everywhere. And the number of towering Amazon girls was dizzying. I can’t imagine where they buy jeans.

The first day of the tournament, the girls played three games and lost all of their sets. Of course, they were way out-matched. But the girls played hard and looked better after each game they played. Mandy played awesome Saturday and had some great hits and blocks. And her serving was awesome -- she only missed one. The girls came out of the day upbeat, ready to take on the next day.

The second day, the girls played three teams with which they were more equally matched. But somehow our team lost all three games. After they lost the first set of the first game, several players just quit trying. But Mandy didn’t quit. Every time they took the court, Mandy came out screaming and jumping and trying to pump the girls up. One of the moms said Mandy was the team cheerleader, trying to keep everyone upbeat. She was still screaming for the ball to make her hits and was still making spot serves. But even with a great cheerleader like Mandy, it wasn’t enough to win.

After the team lost the first set of the third game, most of the girls on the team were in tears, the fans had stopped cheering, and the coaches had quit talking. The girls walked out on the court very somber for their last set of the day.

Then out of nowhere, Mandy jumps up in the air and starts screaming. One second she was stone faced, and the next she was a screaming lunatic. She screams at the top of her lungs and goes around the circle to each girl on the team, high fiving them, and then jumps up and down waving her arms in the air to pump up the crowd. Not only did she have the team laughing and her coaches busting a gut, the entire crowd was laughing, as well as the other team and the officials.

Of course her team lost the last set. And then they came back Monday and lost one last game. It was not a good day. In fact, it was a pretty dismal weekend altogether.

So if it was me, I would throw in the towel. I would be ready to call volleyball quits and chalk up the whole experience as a lesson learned. If it doesn’t go just right, I would rather not do it at all.

But not Mandy. I asked her if she was done with it – volleyball and her team. She said no. She said she loves volleyball. She still loves to play and she isn’t ready to give up.

She is clearly her father’s daughter. Good looking, good natured and just plain goofy.

I guess I can learn something from a 14-year-old. Just because you lose, doesn’t mean you are beaten. If you give up entirely, then you are truly the loser.

It’s a good thing Mandy bounces back so well. We’ve got another tournament this Friday and Saturday. We will have to switch gears for this one: it’s a school basketball tournament for grades 4 through 8. Both Mandy and Joe will play on the team together and Rick will assistant coach. Both Mandy and Joe will have to play almost all game, every game because we only have nine players that are out for basketball. And they are all sixth grade and younger, except for Mandy.

We will be evenly matched by a few teams. We will actually be able to beat one or two teams, unless they show up with unexpected help. And there are one or two teams comprised of mostly seventh and eighth graders that we will have to play who have about double the number of players we have. We are in the B pool, so we won’t have to play the big Omaha schools with all eighth graders. At least we have that going for us.

Anyways, we aren’t expecting to win or even come in second. But we will go out and have some fun. Joe will come down with some decent rebounds and hopefully try to shoot a few more baskets. Big Red (Mandy’s new court nickname) will try to own the lane and hack the crap out of anybody who tries to dribble up the middle. It should be highly entertaining if the kids don’t run out of gas before their last game (which of course is against the biggest B team).

So here we go again. I’m hoping Big Red doesn’t foul out and that Joe doesn’t puke after any of his games. And if anyone starts jumping up and down and screaming like a lunatic, this time I’ll have my camera ready and packed. And I think I’ll throw in a puke bag, just in case. With the way our luck is going, it can’t hurt to come prepared.

Postscript:

I wrote this blog a day or so ago, but have to add that things are looking up. The girls had a practice Wednesday night with the other Magic Gold team, team Umi. Mandy had a fantastic night. The director of the club said that Mandy and the middle hitter for the other team were the best passers on both teams. Middle hitters are generally bad at passing, because they don’t generally get low to get under the ball. (Bummer the two of them come out and are replaced by liberos when they play back row.) And Mandy is one of the fastest players on her team. Evidently that is also rare for a middle hitter. She was congratulated Wednesday night at practice for finishing her laps ahead of more than half of her team. And tonight (Thursday) at practice, she beat everyone on her team when they ran lines. She even streaked ahead of the fast little libero. The director and a coach from another team came over and gave her a high five for running so fast. So, hard work is paying off and her confidence is returning. Watch out in Hastings next weekend. I have a feeling Big Red will return jumping and screaming. She’s ready to go at it again. Better bring the ear plugs.

Basketball, Basketball, Basketball

Sometimes life has a real way of surprising you.

Sometimes your boyfriend turns you into a girl in front of your co-workers and sends you flowers at work (woohoo Carrie). Sometimes your son withstands a game of full-court press against an aggressive boys’ basketball team and doesn’t have to puke afterwards. Sometimes your daughter, who absolutely hates basketball, turns out to be a decent player.

The basketball season is just building up steam here in Lincoln. Along with the school team that both kids play on, our daughter Mandy is playing in a recreational basketball league for the YMCA in Lincoln. Unfortunately she absolutely loathes basketball. She lives for volleyball and adores soccer. But not so much basketball.

She’s tall, so her dad thought she should give basketball one last try before she goes to high school next year. She played basketball for the YMCA when she was in 5^th grade, but quit to give her full-time attention to volleyball.

She is loving her club volleyball team this year. They’ve come in second (or possibly third according to some accounts) in two out of the three volleyball tournaments they’ve played in.

Yeah, there was the one tournament they couldn’t win a game. But, that’s life I guess. The next day they played the other gold Magic team – the one that got third in that tournament – and beat them with their killer serves. Go figure.

She loves playing middle hitter and pounding the ball down on the other teams. She just loves to “play the net.” She came home from her last volleyball tournament this weekend and told me, “Apparently I can jump.” Evidently she got a bunch of awesome blocks at the tournament. The little flutter kick she does to get that tall body off the floor somehow works. Her volleyball coaches just love to make fun of her flutter jump. And I was so sad I had to miss it. I stayed behind to take Joe to his basketball game and watched his Spirit YMCA team beat the Fairbury 6^th grade team. He made the first basket of the game. Go Joe.

Anyways, she hates basketball. I’m not sure what it is about the game. I actually think it has more to do with the fact that she hasn’t consistently played it for years. Sometimes she doesn’t know where to be on the court. Sometimes she doesn’t have the perfect form. Sometimes she doesn’t remember what basket she is supposed to be shooting at. Yes, even on the basketball court she is a blond in a brunette’s body and has tried to make a basket for the other team. But fortunately it was during a school game and the basket didn’t go in (either time she shot it). What a goof.

Imagine our surprise this week when she walked into basketball practice and the first thing her coach said was that Mandy had a great game Sunday. Yea! Mandy’s team got beat Sunday, but she played an aggressive game under the basket. A few weeks ago her team played an 8^th grade team from Raymond Central that had three tall, big girls. (This was the game Mandy had to sit out most of the second half because she had four fouls throwing elbows and hacking the big girls under the basket.) This team played on our court immediately after our game Sunday. The coach from the Raymond Central team approached our coach after the game and told him that Mandy was a really good defensive player. He said he was impressed at how she was able to shut down the big girl in Sunday’s game, because the big girl scored lots of points on the Raymond Central team when they played her. YEA!

For somebody who hates basketball, she can really own the lane on defense. If you attempt to drive the lane, be prepared to get pounded. At Sunday’s game, the big girl was dribbling the ball down the court and headed straight for Mandy in the lane. What Mandy should have done was set her feet and drawn a charge. It was a perfect setup for that situation. INSTEAD, what does Mandy do? She turns sideways, lowers her shoulder, and sends the big girl flying. It’s her soccer shoulder shove. She saves it for aggressive soccer players, plus a few 8^th grade boys at soccer camps and soccer jams. Unfortunately, this is not appropriate for basketball. As the big girl falls to the floor, Mandy is called for blocking with her body. Yeah, that’s about right. If that’s not a foul, then I don’t know what is.

Sooooo, after the game we asked Mandy why she didn’t take the charge. “I didn’t want to get hurt. If someone was going to hit the floor I would rather it be her than me.” Oh Mandy. We have to work on that whole “turn the other cheek bit” with her.

I have to admit, Mandy is not exactly the same person she was at this time last year. This year she has matured into a strong player on the court, and a strong personality off of it, as well. She still is extremely outgoing and makes tons of friends. She still is kind-hearted and always has a flock of little kids following her around. She still is goofy, talks a ton, and always is wearing a smile. But, she has found a self confidence that she was lacking last year to help her rally her team.

She has strong opinions, she strongly defends her friends, and she doesn’t back down from conflict or aggressive people. I’m not sure if this is because she no longer has her best friend Megan at school with her to help her fight her battles, or if it is because most of her new best friends are also strong athletes. They are busy girls who like to spend their time on the court and with one another. They prefer to hang out with the girls and have fun. Most of her friends are confident people, and they don’t seem to need to have a boyfriend to feel validated. I think that is fantastic. Heaven knows that 14-year-old girls have enough challenges. Keeping a boy in line shouldn’t be one of them.

I was talking to Megan’s mom today about that very subject. Megan was working on a homework assignment about teen dating for her teen issues class at East High School while we waited at the school kids’ basketball practice. We both said that if we knew back then what we know now, we would have never given most of the boys in high school a second chance or even a second thought.

I am well aware that Mandy is not completely immune to boys. Yes, I’ve seen her Facebook status. That’s her private life and I won’t talk about that here. I will say, however, that if she has a boyfriend or not, it isn’t the end of her world. (Isaac is a very nice boy. I am secretly cheering for Isaac.)

I’m not sure if she would have said the same thing last year at this time, but maybe everything happens for a reason. Maybe last year she wouldn’t have been a strong enough person to start fresh at a high school with 2,000 students. This year she can’t wait.

One thing I am sure about, focusing on the things she loves has made all the difference. She came home from volleyball tonight talking about all the great hits she made while they were scrimmaging the 15-year-old team. She has been working so hard at conditioning, practices, and individual training to improve her volleyball game, and it is really paying off. Tonight the director at the volleyball club told Rick that he has noticed how Mandy has been playing at the last few tournaments. He thinks maybe she should have been on the top 14-year-old gold team (the one her team beat at their last scrimmage). He said she is really a strong player. She is so happy and feels so good about what all her hard work has accomplished. It makes my heart so happy to see her proud of her accomplishments and have people compliment her on them, especially the coaches. It does her confidence a world of good to see her hard work pay off.

Granted, all her hard work may not pay off when it comes to her basketball team. She may still have a great game, but she probably won’t be able to prevent them from losing by 20 points. The coach has 10 players, so he splits each quarter with one set of five girls, and then the other set of five. It’s hard to sit on the bench when you want to go in and help your friends. But at least she comes home cheerfully chirping about her awesome baskets, or how she blocked some girl’s shot, or how she remembered which basket she should be shooting at the whole game. I’m not sure she still knows what it means to post up, sorry Rick.

Unfortunately her basketball team will have to play without her this weekend. We are headed to the three-day President’s Day Classic at the Qwest Center in Omaha. Three days of volleyball versus elite gold teams. There will be 90-some courts of volleyball being played all at one time. We will probably burn through a lot of gas this weekend getting Mandy to all her games, taking Joe to his games, and attending my niece’s baptism.

Rick and I are looking forward to watching lots of volleyball. Joe is looking forward to another Spirit game Sunday to see if he can score any more points or rip the ball out of anybody’s hands. Mandy is looking forward to having a lot of time hanging out with her friends, and to possibly catching a glimpse of a few boys at State Wrestling Saturday at the Qwest Center. Teenage boys in unitards. Like I said, she isn’t completely immune.