Growing Up

I don't care if the groundhog did see his shadow a couple of weeks ago, this has been a wimpy winter. We have had cold spells, but they have been more of the exception than the rule. I even heard tree frogs chirping away one night a week or so ago. The temperature dropped a few days later which made me wonder how they fared. Then on the other extreme, the boys are so use to the temperature being in the 50s that they didn't grab jackets or put on sweat pants as we were heading out the door to a ball game. Ben put up a fuss when Vicki told him to put on some sweat pants. He looked to the thermometer to support his argument and said, "But Mom, it's only 24° outside."

I've been in something of a reflective mood the last couple of weeks. Nate celebrated his ninth birthday last Tuesday. We had a small family party for him over at Aunt Mar's. He also wanted to go to Incredible Dave's, a new family fun center, so we saved that for today since it's a holiday. This is the last year we'll have a child in the single digits.

We are also coming to the end of our Upward Basketball season for the year. The final games are this weekend. The boys are hoping to finish the season undefeated. It has been fun to watch them play, but this may be the last time we see them on the court together. It could happen if they both choose to continue playing Upward ball through middle school, but Ben has mentioned playing on the school team. Even if they do both play in high school they probably won't be on the court together being two years apart.

Ben is the only fifth grader on their team. What's been neat to watch is that he's a team player, not hogging the ball to be the star of the show. He has also shown an incredible amount of good sportsmanship when paired against a kid who played a little rough.

Of the two boys Nate has actually grown the most as a ball player. I think he's done things his coach never even expected to see him do. Nate doesn't have a lot of points to his credit yet, but he's gotten his mind into the game. You can see him studying the court when he's out there and figuring out where he needs to be to best help his team. He's in there trying to rebound, he's mindful of the three-second rule and stays out of the lane, and he puts it up when he's open. He's really put a lot of concepts together in his head this year, and it's been a pleasure to watch him on the court.

Jenna's team doesn't have the impressive win-loss record that the boys do, but in many ways they've played harder. All the teams they've faced have been really good, and there was a point when our girls were very frustrated because they just couldn't do anything that would work. Rather than give in to their frustrations they found their hearts and played from there. They learned to play as a team and pulled off some nail-biter wins. Jenna dug up some competitive aggression I've not seen her express on the court before, and she's made some pretty impressive contributions to the team's efforts.

This is Jenna's last year to play Upward ball. She'll be in high school next year. She and Vicki went to Freshman Orientation at school last week and we are due to meet with the high school counselor to preregister for classes. The grades she makes next fall will be on her transcript sent to colleges in a few years. I've said this much to Jenna, but it's quite sobering to hear it coming from someone else.

Ben, too, will be moving up to something new next year middle school. We'll be sitting in Sixth Grade Orientation all too soon. More immediately, Ben wants to continue pursuing Scouts. He will be crossing over from Cubs to Boy Scouts next month. (The boys in his den could have crossed over last month, but they wanted to participate in one last Pinewood Derby.) This really hit home with me when we went to the Warioto District Camporee for a little while Saturday.

Ben actually made a very hard decision a couple of weeks ago. He decided not to play baseball this year. He did so citing all the other things in our lives that keep us busy, but it was a loss that he has also grieved with tears. He's right about being busy whether or not he plays baseball, and if he truly does want to make Eagle Scout as he has stated he has no idea how busy he's going to get. Our hurdle, more than anything else, is to help him learn to manage his time.

I wish I had more funny stories to share, but I don't. Time is moving our family forward. That's always in the back of my mind, but it has been more apparent to me over the last few weeks than it has been in a long, long while.

Joe