Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

My Stone Monkey

Sometimes you just have to wake up and smell the coffee....and boy do I HATE the smell of coffee (how can I really be a Seattleite and hate coffee??)!!  Call it what you want:  "life on life's terms", or just realizing that my daughter was never really going to connect with ballet, but this past Fall, after she fell and slightly sprained her foot, we let her not go back to ballet.  So that chapter is closed.  And of course it's been harder for me than her, I think in part because I want her SO badly to find something; an activity, a sport, an art form, just something that feeds her soul half as much as ballet has done for my soul. 

She's ALWAYS been a gifted climber.  Always.  I remember driving with her when she was two years old and she would whine and cry to get out of the car so she could go climb a tree.  When we moved to WA when she had just turned five is when she really began climbing in earnest.  Right after we had gone to my dad's, he left for Sweden for a few weeks and DP and the neighbor boys helped themselves to the giant hedge that was between his house and the street.  I could see them up there sitting and talking, my daughter with a stick in her hand using it as a microphone, playing "Sean Hannity" and reporting the news and weather.  I, of course, thought she was brilliant and amazing and wasn't at all concerned for her safety, because she has always been nothing if not sturdy....and determined.  My aunt who lived across the street however had other ideas.  She was LIVID that I would allow them to play up in the hedge and ordered my uncle to come over immediately and scold all of us.  Silly, angry old woman.  I aquiesced but then checked w/ my dad who was checking in via e-mail and he said of course it was fine that she play in the hedge.  We never looked back.

Yesterday she turned 11 and we found a rock climbing gym near us and my husband took her on Sunday for a lesson and to get a month's membership.  She's SO happy there.  She's getting a VERY good idea VERY quickly of just how tough climbing is and she's thrilled.  She's already scaled two of the walls (with either my husband or myself tethered on the ground feeding her rope) and she's free-climbed one of them.  Her fingers are sore when she's done and she feels like she's used every muscle in her body, but she's happy.  That's worth at least a tripple pirouette.

A Decade Of No Sleep

It's the day after my daughter's 11th birthday and this is what's passing for homeschooling today:  I'ts now after 1pm and my daughter's gone back to bed for a nap after not being able to go to sleep till well past midnight (probably because she's been SO excited for her birthday for the past four days), and then being awakened before 4am by her brother in the room next to ours, who began to happily play and chat.  She left our bed grumpily and then went back to her room where she said she didn't go back to sleep till 8.  Yikes.  So she's back in bed while her brother, after doing some NDT and balance board exercises, is happily watching a Hillsong Kids music DVD.  He's been awake and chipper all day.  I just don't get it.  He's 12 years old and I know I should have some understanding of something about him by now, but I don't.