We're out on the football field. Practice as usual.
Marina says, "Mommy! I have to go potty!"
I'm annoyed at her choice in timing, yet happy that the potty training is working. So, we walk to the port-a-let that is at the edge of the field. I HATE using those things.
So nasty!
When we step inside, I tell her sternly, "DON'T touch ANYthing! Keep your hands to yourself!" As I'm laying paper down on the seat, I look over at her.........
........and to my DISGUST, she is bracing herself with the urinal! YES! Her hand was IN the urinal! Nasty! Nasty! Nasty!
We bolted from that Pit-Of-Germs and quickly flagged down another football Mom who happened to have antibacterial gel in her purse. Let me tell you, I used almost the entire bottle on her little hand, trying to wipe away any memory that her hand had touched that filthy thing! Oh, the stories we have, out on that football field!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Kindergarten
Who knew there were so many requirements to fulfill before your kid could start kindergarten?? Yikes! Physical exam @ the doctor, including 4 nasty shots...Dental exam...Vision test...bus route paperwork...plus all the shopping for school supplies and clothes! Phew! After all that, the first day of school finally arrives, and here I am, waving goodbye to my sweet little boy. With a lunchbox in his bag and new shoes on his feet, he enters the huge school, holding a teacher's hand, ready to face his first full day without Mom. And I drive away, fighting back fears, ready to face my first full day without Reese. Sad day.Reese is attending Churchill Elementary this year. I love his teacher. She seems strict, yet loving. He will be in a normal half day kindergarten class, with 25 children. That is an overwhelming number of kids for me, but I know he'll be fine There will be an aid in the classroom to prompt Reese when he needs special help. Then he will be pulled for lunch with the other special needs kids, and then attend an afternoon diagnostic class. This class is intended for kids with delays (such as speech or occupational delays, like Reese), and it is meant to give those kids an added boost as they reinforce the things they've learned in the morning session.
So, in essence, Reese is attending all-day school. My hope is that he will succeed in this program and catch up to the other kids his age. That way, we can enroll him at CCS next year, like his brother. But if he still shows delay, then we will keep him in the public school system so he can receive the special help he needs. (Private schools just don't have the resources to aid special needs kids). Either way, we are so darn proud of Reese. He's such a fighter, and works so hard to overcome obstacles. He is so brave, to enter into new settings without Mom and Dad, and to participate in class.It's so difficult to let him go out on his own. I'd rather be there beside him, explaining things and making things easy for him. But this program is what he needs. To learn on his own and face tough academics head on. Without Mommy there to give him the answers. It will make him a better student for life. So, here I sit. Rooting for him on the inside. We prayed for him before bed, the night before. And Mark had the same anxieties that I had. He was in tears for Reese, afraid to let his little brother start a new school alone. Sweet Mark decided to sleep in Reese's bed and comfort him all night. What a great, protective brother!
Reese happily came off the bus at the end of his first day. I tried to get as much info as I could from him, before he completely forgot what he'd done at school. He seemed to like it. He liked recess. And storytime. And he was so happy I'd packed him an extra juice box and pretzels for lunch. That's all I could pull from him, before he got frustrated and wanted to run and play. That's enough for me, though. Enough to calm my fears and know that he is in good hands. Even if those hands aren't mine. xoxo
Monday, August 25, 2008
Fourth Grade
Today is Mark's first day of school! He is entering fourth grade at CCS. His teacher this year is Mrs. K, whom Mark was hoping to get.He is excited to be back at school with his friends. But he is also nervous about the heavy workload. His goal this year is to not talk in class and to be a leader, showing his friends a good example.
Last night, we had some special family time, eating peanut butter cookies and flipping thru Mark's baby albums. It was fun to see how big Mark has grown. It was fun for Reese and Marina to see pics of Mark as a baby. They especially laughed when they saw him in diapers. I guess they never realized Mark was once an infant. LOL.
We started this morning off with a special breakfast with Daddy, out on the front porch. Mommy made 'sunshine muffins' and video taped Mark's remarks as he prepared for his first day of school. Then Mark geled up his hair, put his new shoes on, and went outside for our traditional first day pics. Then Daddy drove him to school. Here's the little stud-muffin himself. So handsome!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
An Olympic 'Must-Read'!!!
Somalia’s Runners Provide Inspiration
By Charles Robinson
BEIJING – Samia Yusuf Omar headed back to Somalia Sunday, returning to the small two-room house in Mogadishu shared by seven family members. Her mother lives there, selling fruits and vegetables. Her father is buried there, the victim of a wayward artillery shell that hit their home and also killed Samia’s aunt and uncle.
This is the Olympic story we never heard.
It’s about a girl whose Beijing moment lasted a mere 32 seconds – the slowest 200-meter dash time out of the 46 women who competed in the event. Thirty-two seconds that almost nobody saw but that she carries home with her, swelled with joy and wonderment. Back to a decades-long civil war that has flattened much of her city. Back to an Olympic program with few Olympians and no facilities. Back to meals of flat bread, wheat porridge and tap water.
“I have my pride,” she said through a translator before leaving China. “This is the highest thing any athlete can hope for. It has been a very happy experience for me. I am proud to bring the Somali flag to fly with all of these countries, and to stand with the best athletes in the world.”
There are many life stories that collide in each Olympics – many intriguing tales of glory and tragedy. Beijing delivered the electricity of Usain Bolt and the determination of Michael Phelps. It left hearts heavy with the disappointment of Liu Xiang and the heartache of Hugh McCutcheon.
But it also gave us Samia Yusuf Omar – one small girl from one chaotic country – and a story that might have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for a roaring half-empty stadium.
***
It was Aug. 19, and the tiny girl had crossed over seven lanes to find her starting block in her 200-meter heat. She walked past Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown – the eventual gold medalist in the event. Samia had read about Campbell-Brown in track and field magazines and once watched her in wonderment on television. As a cameraman panned down the starting blocks, it settled on lane No. 2, on a 17-year old girl with the frame of a Kenyan distance runner. Samia’s biography in the Olympic media system contained almost no information, other than her 5-foot-4, 119-pound frame. There was no mention of her personal best times and nothing on previous track meets. Somalia, it was later explained, has a hard time organizing the records of its athletes.
She looked so odd and out of place among her competitors, with her white headband and a baggy, untucked T-shirt. The legs on her wiry frame were thin and spindly, and her arms poked out of her sleeves like the twigs of a sapling. She tugged at the bottom of her shirt and shot an occasional nervous glance at the other runners in her heat. Each had muscles bulging from beneath their skin-tight track suits. Many outweighed Samia by nearly 40 pounds.
After introductions, she knelt into her starting block.
***
The country of Somalia sent two athletes to the Beijing Games – Samia and distance runner Abdi Said Ibrahim, who competed in the men’s 5,000-meter event. Like Samia, Abdi finished last in his event, overmatched by competitors who were groomed for their Olympic moment. Somalia has only loose-knit programs supporting its Olympians, few coaches, and few facilities. With a civil war tearing the city apart since the Somali government’s collapse in 1991, Mogadishu Stadium has become one of the bloodiest pieces of real estate in the city – housing U.N. forces in the early 1990s and now a military compound for insurgents.
That has left the country’s track athletes to train in Coni Stadium, an artillery-pocked structure built in 1958 which has no track, endless divots, and has been overtaken by weeds and plants.
“Sports are not a priority for Somalia,” said Duran Farah, vice president of the Somali Olympic Committee. “There is no money for facilities or training. The war, the security, the difficulties with food and everything – there are just many other internal difficulties to deal with.”
That leaves athletes such as Samia and 18-year old Abdi without the normal comforts and structure enjoyed by almost every other athlete in the Olympic Games. They don’t receive consistent coaching, don’t compete in meets on a regular basis and struggle to find safety in something as simple as going out for a daily run.
When Samia cannot make it to the stadium, she runs in the streets, where she runs into roadblocks of burning tires and refuse set out by insurgents. She is often bullied and threatened by militia or locals who believe that Muslim women should not take part in sports. In hopes of lessening the abuse, she runs in the oppressive heat wearing long sleeves, sweat pants and a head scarf. Even then, she is told her place should be in the home – not participating in sports.
“For some men, nothing is good enough,” Farah said.
Even Abdi faces constant difficulties, passing through military checkpoints where he is shaken down for money. And when he has competed in sanctioned track events, gun-toting insurgents have threatened his life for what they viewed as compliance with the interim government.
“Once, the insurgents were very unhappy,” he said. “When we went back home, my friends and I were rounded up and we were told if we did it again, we would get killed. Some of my friends stopped being in sports. I had many phone calls threatening me, that if I didn’t stop running, I would get killed. Lately, I do not have these problems. I think probably they realized we just wanted to be athletes and were not involved with the government.”
But the interim government has not been able to offer support, instead spending its cash and energy arming Ethiopian allies for the fight against insurgents. Other than organizing a meet to compete for Olympic selection – in which the Somali Olympic federation chose whom it believed to be its two best performers – there has been little lavished on athletes. While other countries pour millions into the training and perfecting of their Olympic stars, Somalia offers little guidance and no doctors, not even a stipend for food.
“The food is not something that is measured and given to us every day,” Samia said. “We eat whatever we can get.”
On the best days, that means getting protein from a small portion of fish, camel or goat meat, and carbohydrates from bananas or citrus fruits growing in local trees. On the worst days – and there are long stretches of those – it means surviving on water and Angera, a flat bread made from a mixture of wheat and barley.
“There is no grocery store,” Abdi said. “We can’t go shopping for whatever we want.”
He laughs at this thought, with a smile that is missing a front tooth.
***
When the gun went off in Samia’s 200-meter heat, seven women blasted from their starting blocks, registering as little as 16 one-hundredths of a second of reaction time. Samia’s start was slow enough that the computer didn’t read it, leaving her reaction time blank on the heat’s statistical printout.
Within seconds, seven competitors were thundering around the curve in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, struggling to separate themselves from one another. Samia was just entering the curve when her opponents were nearing the finish line. A local television feed had lost her entirely by the time Veronica Campbell-Brown crossed the finish line in a trotting 23.04 seconds.
As the athletes came to a halt and knelt, stretching and sucking deep breaths, a camera moved to ground level. In the background of the picture, a white dot wearing a headband could be seen coming down the stretch.
***
Until this month, Samia had been to two countries outside of her own – Djibouti and Ethiopia. Asked how she will describe Beijing, her eyes get big and she snickers from under a blue and white Olympic baseball cap.
“The stadiums, I never thought something like this existed in the world,” she said. “The buildings in the city, it was all very surprising. It will probably take days to finish all the stories we have to tell.”
Asked about Beijing’s otherworldly Water Cube, she lets out a sigh: “Ahhhhhhh.”
Before she can answer, Abdi cuts her off.
“I didn’t know what it was when I saw it,” he said. “Is it plastic? Is it magic?”
Few buildings are beyond two or three stories tall in Mogadishu, and those still standing are mostly in tatters. Only pictures will be able to describe some of Beijing’s structures, from the ancient architecture of the Forbidden City to the modernity of the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest.
“The Olympic fire in the stadium, everywhere I am, it is always up there,” Samia said. “It’s like the moon. I look up wherever I go, it is there.”
These are the stories they will relish when they return to Somalia, which they believe has, for one brief moment, united the country’s warring tribes. Farah said he had received calls from countrymen all over the world, asking how their two athletes were doing and what they had experienced in China. On the morning of Samia’s race, it was just after 5 a.m., and locals from her neighborhood were scrambling to find a television with a broadcast.
“People stayed awake to see it,” Farah said. “The good thing, sports is the one thing which unites all of Somalia.”
That is one of the common threads they share with every athlete at the Games. Just being an Olympian and carrying the country’s flag brings an immense sense of pride to families and neighborhoods which typically know only despair.
A pride that Samia will share with her mother, three brothers and three sisters. A pride that Abdi will carry home to his father, two brothers and two sisters. Like Samia’s father two years ago, Abdi’s mother was killed in the civil war, by a mortar shell that hit the family’s home in 1993.
“We are very proud,” Samia said. “Because of us, the Somali flag is raised among all the other nations’ flags. You can’t imagine how proud we were when we were marching in the Opening Ceremonies with the flag.
“Despite the difficulties and everything we’ve had with our country, we feel great pride in our accomplishment.”
***
As Samia came down the stretch in her 200-meter heat, she realized that the Somalian Olympic federation had chosen to place her in the wrong event. The 200 wasn’t nearly the best event for a middle distance runner. But the federation believed the dash would serve as a “good experience” for her. Now she was coming down the stretch alone, pumping her arms and tilting her head to the side with a look of despair.
Suddenly, the half-empty stadium realized there was still a runner on the track, still pushing to get across the finish line almost eight seconds behind the seven women who had already completed the race. In the last 50 meters, much of the stadium rose to its feet, flooding the track below with cheers of encouragement. A few competitors who had left Samia behind turned and watched it unfold.
As Samia crossed the line in 32.16 seconds, the crowd roared in applause. Bahamian runner Sheniqua Ferguson, the next smallest woman on the track at 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds, looked at the girl crossing the finish and thought to herself, “Wow, she’s tiny.”
“She must love running,” Ferguson said later.
***
Several days later, Samia waved off her Olympic moment as being inspirational. While she was still filled with joy over her chance to compete, and though she knew she had done all she could, part of her seemed embarrassed that the crowd had risen to its feet to help push her across the finish line.
“I was happy the people were cheering and encouraging me,” she said. “But I would have liked to be cheered because I won, not because I needed encouragement. It is something I will work on. I will try my best not to be the last person next time. It was very nice for people to give me that encouragement, but I would prefer the winning cheer.
She shrugged and smiled.
“I knew it was an uphill task.”
And there it was. While the Olympics are often promoted for the fastest and strongest and most agile champions, there is something to be said for the ones who finish out of the limelight. The ones who finish last and leave with their pride.
At their best, the Olympics still signify competition and purity, a love for sport. What represents that better than two athletes who carry their country’s flag into the Games despite their country’s inability to carry them before that moment? What better way to find the best of the Olympic spirit than by looking at those who endure so much that would break it?
“We know that we are different from the other athletes,” Samia said. “But we don’t want to show it. We try our best to look like all the rest. We understand we are not anywhere near the level of the other competitors here. We understand that very, very well. But more than anything else, we would like to show the dignity of ourselves and our country.”
She smiles when she says this, sitting a stone’s throw from a Somalian flag that she and her countryman Abdi brought to these Games. They came and went from Beijing largely unnoticed, but may have been the most dignified example these Olympics could offer.
By Charles Robinson
BEIJING – Samia Yusuf Omar headed back to Somalia Sunday, returning to the small two-room house in Mogadishu shared by seven family members. Her mother lives there, selling fruits and vegetables. Her father is buried there, the victim of a wayward artillery shell that hit their home and also killed Samia’s aunt and uncle.
This is the Olympic story we never heard.
It’s about a girl whose Beijing moment lasted a mere 32 seconds – the slowest 200-meter dash time out of the 46 women who competed in the event. Thirty-two seconds that almost nobody saw but that she carries home with her, swelled with joy and wonderment. Back to a decades-long civil war that has flattened much of her city. Back to an Olympic program with few Olympians and no facilities. Back to meals of flat bread, wheat porridge and tap water.
“I have my pride,” she said through a translator before leaving China. “This is the highest thing any athlete can hope for. It has been a very happy experience for me. I am proud to bring the Somali flag to fly with all of these countries, and to stand with the best athletes in the world.”
There are many life stories that collide in each Olympics – many intriguing tales of glory and tragedy. Beijing delivered the electricity of Usain Bolt and the determination of Michael Phelps. It left hearts heavy with the disappointment of Liu Xiang and the heartache of Hugh McCutcheon.
But it also gave us Samia Yusuf Omar – one small girl from one chaotic country – and a story that might have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for a roaring half-empty stadium.
***
It was Aug. 19, and the tiny girl had crossed over seven lanes to find her starting block in her 200-meter heat. She walked past Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown – the eventual gold medalist in the event. Samia had read about Campbell-Brown in track and field magazines and once watched her in wonderment on television. As a cameraman panned down the starting blocks, it settled on lane No. 2, on a 17-year old girl with the frame of a Kenyan distance runner. Samia’s biography in the Olympic media system contained almost no information, other than her 5-foot-4, 119-pound frame. There was no mention of her personal best times and nothing on previous track meets. Somalia, it was later explained, has a hard time organizing the records of its athletes.
She looked so odd and out of place among her competitors, with her white headband and a baggy, untucked T-shirt. The legs on her wiry frame were thin and spindly, and her arms poked out of her sleeves like the twigs of a sapling. She tugged at the bottom of her shirt and shot an occasional nervous glance at the other runners in her heat. Each had muscles bulging from beneath their skin-tight track suits. Many outweighed Samia by nearly 40 pounds.
After introductions, she knelt into her starting block.
***
The country of Somalia sent two athletes to the Beijing Games – Samia and distance runner Abdi Said Ibrahim, who competed in the men’s 5,000-meter event. Like Samia, Abdi finished last in his event, overmatched by competitors who were groomed for their Olympic moment. Somalia has only loose-knit programs supporting its Olympians, few coaches, and few facilities. With a civil war tearing the city apart since the Somali government’s collapse in 1991, Mogadishu Stadium has become one of the bloodiest pieces of real estate in the city – housing U.N. forces in the early 1990s and now a military compound for insurgents.
That has left the country’s track athletes to train in Coni Stadium, an artillery-pocked structure built in 1958 which has no track, endless divots, and has been overtaken by weeds and plants.
“Sports are not a priority for Somalia,” said Duran Farah, vice president of the Somali Olympic Committee. “There is no money for facilities or training. The war, the security, the difficulties with food and everything – there are just many other internal difficulties to deal with.”
That leaves athletes such as Samia and 18-year old Abdi without the normal comforts and structure enjoyed by almost every other athlete in the Olympic Games. They don’t receive consistent coaching, don’t compete in meets on a regular basis and struggle to find safety in something as simple as going out for a daily run.
When Samia cannot make it to the stadium, she runs in the streets, where she runs into roadblocks of burning tires and refuse set out by insurgents. She is often bullied and threatened by militia or locals who believe that Muslim women should not take part in sports. In hopes of lessening the abuse, she runs in the oppressive heat wearing long sleeves, sweat pants and a head scarf. Even then, she is told her place should be in the home – not participating in sports.
“For some men, nothing is good enough,” Farah said.
Even Abdi faces constant difficulties, passing through military checkpoints where he is shaken down for money. And when he has competed in sanctioned track events, gun-toting insurgents have threatened his life for what they viewed as compliance with the interim government.
“Once, the insurgents were very unhappy,” he said. “When we went back home, my friends and I were rounded up and we were told if we did it again, we would get killed. Some of my friends stopped being in sports. I had many phone calls threatening me, that if I didn’t stop running, I would get killed. Lately, I do not have these problems. I think probably they realized we just wanted to be athletes and were not involved with the government.”
But the interim government has not been able to offer support, instead spending its cash and energy arming Ethiopian allies for the fight against insurgents. Other than organizing a meet to compete for Olympic selection – in which the Somali Olympic federation chose whom it believed to be its two best performers – there has been little lavished on athletes. While other countries pour millions into the training and perfecting of their Olympic stars, Somalia offers little guidance and no doctors, not even a stipend for food.
“The food is not something that is measured and given to us every day,” Samia said. “We eat whatever we can get.”
On the best days, that means getting protein from a small portion of fish, camel or goat meat, and carbohydrates from bananas or citrus fruits growing in local trees. On the worst days – and there are long stretches of those – it means surviving on water and Angera, a flat bread made from a mixture of wheat and barley.
“There is no grocery store,” Abdi said. “We can’t go shopping for whatever we want.”
He laughs at this thought, with a smile that is missing a front tooth.
***
When the gun went off in Samia’s 200-meter heat, seven women blasted from their starting blocks, registering as little as 16 one-hundredths of a second of reaction time. Samia’s start was slow enough that the computer didn’t read it, leaving her reaction time blank on the heat’s statistical printout.
Within seconds, seven competitors were thundering around the curve in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, struggling to separate themselves from one another. Samia was just entering the curve when her opponents were nearing the finish line. A local television feed had lost her entirely by the time Veronica Campbell-Brown crossed the finish line in a trotting 23.04 seconds.
As the athletes came to a halt and knelt, stretching and sucking deep breaths, a camera moved to ground level. In the background of the picture, a white dot wearing a headband could be seen coming down the stretch.
***
Until this month, Samia had been to two countries outside of her own – Djibouti and Ethiopia. Asked how she will describe Beijing, her eyes get big and she snickers from under a blue and white Olympic baseball cap.
“The stadiums, I never thought something like this existed in the world,” she said. “The buildings in the city, it was all very surprising. It will probably take days to finish all the stories we have to tell.”
Asked about Beijing’s otherworldly Water Cube, she lets out a sigh: “Ahhhhhhh.”
Before she can answer, Abdi cuts her off.
“I didn’t know what it was when I saw it,” he said. “Is it plastic? Is it magic?”
Few buildings are beyond two or three stories tall in Mogadishu, and those still standing are mostly in tatters. Only pictures will be able to describe some of Beijing’s structures, from the ancient architecture of the Forbidden City to the modernity of the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest.
“The Olympic fire in the stadium, everywhere I am, it is always up there,” Samia said. “It’s like the moon. I look up wherever I go, it is there.”
These are the stories they will relish when they return to Somalia, which they believe has, for one brief moment, united the country’s warring tribes. Farah said he had received calls from countrymen all over the world, asking how their two athletes were doing and what they had experienced in China. On the morning of Samia’s race, it was just after 5 a.m., and locals from her neighborhood were scrambling to find a television with a broadcast.
“People stayed awake to see it,” Farah said. “The good thing, sports is the one thing which unites all of Somalia.”
That is one of the common threads they share with every athlete at the Games. Just being an Olympian and carrying the country’s flag brings an immense sense of pride to families and neighborhoods which typically know only despair.
A pride that Samia will share with her mother, three brothers and three sisters. A pride that Abdi will carry home to his father, two brothers and two sisters. Like Samia’s father two years ago, Abdi’s mother was killed in the civil war, by a mortar shell that hit the family’s home in 1993.
“We are very proud,” Samia said. “Because of us, the Somali flag is raised among all the other nations’ flags. You can’t imagine how proud we were when we were marching in the Opening Ceremonies with the flag.
“Despite the difficulties and everything we’ve had with our country, we feel great pride in our accomplishment.”
***
As Samia came down the stretch in her 200-meter heat, she realized that the Somalian Olympic federation had chosen to place her in the wrong event. The 200 wasn’t nearly the best event for a middle distance runner. But the federation believed the dash would serve as a “good experience” for her. Now she was coming down the stretch alone, pumping her arms and tilting her head to the side with a look of despair.
Suddenly, the half-empty stadium realized there was still a runner on the track, still pushing to get across the finish line almost eight seconds behind the seven women who had already completed the race. In the last 50 meters, much of the stadium rose to its feet, flooding the track below with cheers of encouragement. A few competitors who had left Samia behind turned and watched it unfold.
As Samia crossed the line in 32.16 seconds, the crowd roared in applause. Bahamian runner Sheniqua Ferguson, the next smallest woman on the track at 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds, looked at the girl crossing the finish and thought to herself, “Wow, she’s tiny.”
“She must love running,” Ferguson said later.
***
Several days later, Samia waved off her Olympic moment as being inspirational. While she was still filled with joy over her chance to compete, and though she knew she had done all she could, part of her seemed embarrassed that the crowd had risen to its feet to help push her across the finish line.
“I was happy the people were cheering and encouraging me,” she said. “But I would have liked to be cheered because I won, not because I needed encouragement. It is something I will work on. I will try my best not to be the last person next time. It was very nice for people to give me that encouragement, but I would prefer the winning cheer.
She shrugged and smiled.
“I knew it was an uphill task.”
And there it was. While the Olympics are often promoted for the fastest and strongest and most agile champions, there is something to be said for the ones who finish out of the limelight. The ones who finish last and leave with their pride.
At their best, the Olympics still signify competition and purity, a love for sport. What represents that better than two athletes who carry their country’s flag into the Games despite their country’s inability to carry them before that moment? What better way to find the best of the Olympic spirit than by looking at those who endure so much that would break it?
“We know that we are different from the other athletes,” Samia said. “But we don’t want to show it. We try our best to look like all the rest. We understand we are not anywhere near the level of the other competitors here. We understand that very, very well. But more than anything else, we would like to show the dignity of ourselves and our country.”
She smiles when she says this, sitting a stone’s throw from a Somalian flag that she and her countryman Abdi brought to these Games. They came and went from Beijing largely unnoticed, but may have been the most dignified example these Olympics could offer.
Catching Up Part 4
OK, so with all the busyness this week, and after hearing all sorts of negative and positive feedback, I have finally found the time to sit and watch the 2 hour interview with Sen. Barrack Obama and Sen. John McCain, hosted by Rick Warren @ his Saddleback church.
I've heard so many different opinions from friends and family. Especially the opinion that Barrack wasn't nearly as commanding and concise with his answers as McCain had been. So, that was my expectation as I sat down to view this event. But, I have to say, after watching the entire program, I don't feel Barrack made a complete fool of himself, as some suggested.
I DO think he skirted the issues an awful lot. And he didn't give very direct answers. I did like the decisiveness I heard from McCain. And his years of experience definitely stood out above his opponents.'
I think it was a very good forum, a very productive time of discussing very tough issues, and I'm very glad I sat and watched it. That's about all I'm gonna say, cuz I'm tired and have lot's to do for the first week of school. So, that's it. xoxo
I've heard so many different opinions from friends and family. Especially the opinion that Barrack wasn't nearly as commanding and concise with his answers as McCain had been. So, that was my expectation as I sat down to view this event. But, I have to say, after watching the entire program, I don't feel Barrack made a complete fool of himself, as some suggested.
I DO think he skirted the issues an awful lot. And he didn't give very direct answers. I did like the decisiveness I heard from McCain. And his years of experience definitely stood out above his opponents.'
I think it was a very good forum, a very productive time of discussing very tough issues, and I'm very glad I sat and watched it. That's about all I'm gonna say, cuz I'm tired and have lot's to do for the first week of school. So, that's it. xoxo
Catching Up Part 3
Here are some still shots from when the Kid's Connection band shot a music video earlier this summer, for the song SOLUTION by Hillsong United. We filmed it at various locations, downtown Chicago. It was such a blast! The final video has been shown several times in Kid's Connection, but I'm still waiting to get my hands on a copy so that I can post it online. Till then, here are just a few of the many, many pics that were so artistically taken by Kyle Dern:
My brother, Brandon, sang lead and I did backup vocals. In fact we sang like this for all the Kid's Connection services this summer, as well as for KCU, a Wednesday adult service, and an NXT service. What an experience for me, to sing with someone so talented. I love my brother so much! And, yes, college-aged ladies...not ony is he talented...he's also available! LOL.Catching Up Part 2
This week, Mark had a rough time in football. He missed an entire week of practice while we were away at camp, and the very next day after returning home, he had to play in their first season game. The team seemed a bit unorganized, and they ended up losing the game. Sad day!
When the coaches reviewed the video footage of the game, they noticed that, among other players, Mark had not given much effort at all! So the following week of practice was like boot camp for the team. The coaches seemed to be on a mission to discipline these kids.
A couple of the coaches took it much too far, in my opinion. I don't mind them being tough with the kids, and working them hard so that they grow physically and mentally as players. But a couple of these coaches were using very raw words and were cutting these kids down personally, including Mark. They were saying things like, "Did you leave your brain back at camp?!" and "Come on girls, this isn't dance class!" and "What's wrong with you?! Pay attention!!"
Once in awhile, a comment like that is okay. But to keep hearing those coaches spewing words like that onto 9yr old kids...not cool. WE don't talk that way to our kids. Why would we let someone else?? What resulted was Mark giving almost zero effort in practice all week, and tears as he came off the field, so frustrated with the coaches, and finally, Ryan having to pull the coach aside and tell him to backoff!
Yesterday was game 2. Ryan and I did all we could to pump up Mark before the game. We encouraged him that this game is a chance to show his coaches that we've been practicing at home and that he's ready to be aggressive and focused out on the field. Mark was excited to get out there and show them. Unfortunately, he never got that chance. The coaches ripped his butt off first string and benched him for most of the game. They told him that if he wanted more gametime, he would have to show more effort at practice.
Again, Mark came off the field after the game (and incidentally...another loss), with tears and frustration. I felt so bad for him. But I also took that moment as a teaching tool.
You see, almost everything has come easy to Mark throughout his short lifetime. School is a piece of cake. He rarely has to study for tests and can easily pull off an A. Sports have also come easy for him. His husky size has made him a great lineman, and a first choice for coaches, no matter which team he's played on. He had walked into football as a 7yr old and was immediately placed on first string defense and offense (something the coaches told us they rarely do).
He then entered his 2nd yr of football, the biggest kid on the team who could almost effortlessly push a line of opposing players back off his QB. Now we enter Mark's 3rd season, which has required him to move up to a greater weight class, with new coaches, bigger kids, and a much greater skill level...yet again, they put him on first string offense and defense, while the rest of the 9yr olds that moved up with him are getting very little playtime.
For the first time, Mark is having to work his tail off in order to keep that first-string status. And he's getting benched for lack of effort. I think it's a very good lesson for Mark to learn. To have to work hard, through heat and muscle aches and shouting coaches, in order to obtain a desired priviledge. Kinda cool.
So, I pumped him up again, after yesterday's discouraging loss, and I told him that this next week in practice is another chance for him to blow his coaches away with his effort. He has the chance to earn his play-time back for the next game. And he has the opportunity to show himself what he can accomplish when he truly gives 100%. Our conversation lifted his spirits quite a bit. But I still didn't feel like it was enough, after such a tough, emotional week.
So, after dinner, I suggested that Mark and I hop in the car and return to the football field to catch the end of Varsity's game. When we got there, it was halftime, so we were able to watch quite a bit of the game. He was so excited to see the skill level those kids were at. As we sat there, he kept talking about what it will be like when he gets to that level. I thought that was really neat. It put a taste in his mouth for greater things, and showed his the reward that awaits, if he will only stick it out during these grueling, rough practices.
By fourth quarter, he noticed some of his teammates playing catch over past the bleachers, and he asked if he could go play with them. I said yes, and quietly sat and watched the rest of the Varsity game alone. I knew that it was probably just as beneficial for Mark to play with his teammates, on a friendly basis, and get to know them OFF the field. That will hopefully build comradery and loyalty, that will translate into even greater effort ON the field. He walked away from that day with a renewed excitement for the game of football, for time spent with his team, and heightened spirits that will hopefully bring him through another week of boot camp. LOL.
When the coaches reviewed the video footage of the game, they noticed that, among other players, Mark had not given much effort at all! So the following week of practice was like boot camp for the team. The coaches seemed to be on a mission to discipline these kids.
A couple of the coaches took it much too far, in my opinion. I don't mind them being tough with the kids, and working them hard so that they grow physically and mentally as players. But a couple of these coaches were using very raw words and were cutting these kids down personally, including Mark. They were saying things like, "Did you leave your brain back at camp?!" and "Come on girls, this isn't dance class!" and "What's wrong with you?! Pay attention!!"
Once in awhile, a comment like that is okay. But to keep hearing those coaches spewing words like that onto 9yr old kids...not cool. WE don't talk that way to our kids. Why would we let someone else?? What resulted was Mark giving almost zero effort in practice all week, and tears as he came off the field, so frustrated with the coaches, and finally, Ryan having to pull the coach aside and tell him to backoff!
Yesterday was game 2. Ryan and I did all we could to pump up Mark before the game. We encouraged him that this game is a chance to show his coaches that we've been practicing at home and that he's ready to be aggressive and focused out on the field. Mark was excited to get out there and show them. Unfortunately, he never got that chance. The coaches ripped his butt off first string and benched him for most of the game. They told him that if he wanted more gametime, he would have to show more effort at practice.
Again, Mark came off the field after the game (and incidentally...another loss), with tears and frustration. I felt so bad for him. But I also took that moment as a teaching tool.
You see, almost everything has come easy to Mark throughout his short lifetime. School is a piece of cake. He rarely has to study for tests and can easily pull off an A. Sports have also come easy for him. His husky size has made him a great lineman, and a first choice for coaches, no matter which team he's played on. He had walked into football as a 7yr old and was immediately placed on first string defense and offense (something the coaches told us they rarely do).
He then entered his 2nd yr of football, the biggest kid on the team who could almost effortlessly push a line of opposing players back off his QB. Now we enter Mark's 3rd season, which has required him to move up to a greater weight class, with new coaches, bigger kids, and a much greater skill level...yet again, they put him on first string offense and defense, while the rest of the 9yr olds that moved up with him are getting very little playtime.
For the first time, Mark is having to work his tail off in order to keep that first-string status. And he's getting benched for lack of effort. I think it's a very good lesson for Mark to learn. To have to work hard, through heat and muscle aches and shouting coaches, in order to obtain a desired priviledge. Kinda cool.
So, I pumped him up again, after yesterday's discouraging loss, and I told him that this next week in practice is another chance for him to blow his coaches away with his effort. He has the chance to earn his play-time back for the next game. And he has the opportunity to show himself what he can accomplish when he truly gives 100%. Our conversation lifted his spirits quite a bit. But I still didn't feel like it was enough, after such a tough, emotional week.
So, after dinner, I suggested that Mark and I hop in the car and return to the football field to catch the end of Varsity's game. When we got there, it was halftime, so we were able to watch quite a bit of the game. He was so excited to see the skill level those kids were at. As we sat there, he kept talking about what it will be like when he gets to that level. I thought that was really neat. It put a taste in his mouth for greater things, and showed his the reward that awaits, if he will only stick it out during these grueling, rough practices.
By fourth quarter, he noticed some of his teammates playing catch over past the bleachers, and he asked if he could go play with them. I said yes, and quietly sat and watched the rest of the Varsity game alone. I knew that it was probably just as beneficial for Mark to play with his teammates, on a friendly basis, and get to know them OFF the field. That will hopefully build comradery and loyalty, that will translate into even greater effort ON the field. He walked away from that day with a renewed excitement for the game of football, for time spent with his team, and heightened spirits that will hopefully bring him through another week of boot camp. LOL.
