To bowl or not to bowl

Today was disco bowling for the first graders at our school. Parents, grandparents, other doting adults were invited to come see our children bowl to pop music and a few colored lights illuminating from a small disco ball on the gymnasium stage.

It meant waking Grace up early from her nap, but it was otherwise convenient enough since Carver was at preschool. Ellie was thrilled to see me there. I got lots of hugs and kisses and excited waves. Grace was still not excited to be out of the warm, happy realm of blankies and yum-yums. By the end of the 30 minute disco party, Grace left my arms for short intervals of frenzied dancing or to crawl around on the floor as a puppy. But mostly, I held her and we watched.

Without going into excruciating details, let’s just suffice it to say that Ellie is not a talented bowler.

I watched her struggle with each awkward throw, bend over in exaggerated sighs when the ball stopped short of the pins A-GAIN, and run determinedly to assist with the pins while her friends took a turn. She told me at one point that she loved bowling. They’ve been doing it every day in PE and it’s way better than jogging. But she’s NEVER, not once, gotten a strike. (Isn’t it interesting that she wasn’t concerned that her ball didn’t stay in the lane or that it rarely made contact with even 1 pin - never mind all 10?) I tried to coach her a couple times, but mostly I just watched and cheered her on.

And through it all, I kept thinking, hmm… we really should take our kids bowling!

When your kids don’t succeed at something, what do YOU do? I realized last year that I was looking for summer activities to compensate for the girls’ natural weaknesses instead of nurturing their innate abilities. I had signed them up for sports camps and skipped the library story times at the park. We’ve got that reading thing covered…we already do lots of art projects at home, I said to myself. Then something clicked and I realized I had it all backwards. I got wise and had them take a summer painting class from a local artist last year. It was fabulous. They loved it and I felt like I was actually catering to their strengths rather than their weaknesses. The goal is to build self-confidence, right? Not establish early on that it’s important to know how to do everything in life, or that it isn’t okay to be below average at anything in THIS family.

As Anna Quindlen put it so well:

"When you were first born, each of you, our great glory was in thinking you absolutely distinct from every baby who had even been born before. You were a miracle of singularity, and we knew it in every fiber of our being.... But we are only human... and over the years we learned to want for you things that you did not necessarily want for yourself.... We learned to suspect, even fear your differences, not to celebrate them. Sometimes we were convinced conformity would make life better, or at least easier for you. Sometimes we had a hard time figuring out where you ended and we began."

I asked Ellie tonight if she’d like to go bowling sometime and she immediately replied, yes! And I hope that we both know that it’s for fun - not because she needs the practice.

walking in our shoes

thanks to Merideth for this clever idea.

don't shoes say a lot about a person?

from worn-out princess shoes
to shiny red boots,
from fringed suede
to purple crocs

I love the collection around here!

Funniest Home Movie EVER

Okay, we've probably had other good ones, too. But not in a long, long time.
Watch it to the very end for Carver's classic table "manners."

We try so hard not to laugh when he does that!
...but man-oh-man can that kid burp!! :)

A thousand words

If a picture is worth a thousand words...
I've got some serious writing to do. :)

We've been having a warm winter around these parts -
Not more than a sprinkling of snowflakes dusting our lawn
so the kids have been DYING for snow
Can't say I miss having feet of snow at my house, though.
We left our chores at home and drove up the mountain pass today
with new sleds, hot chocolate mix, a backpacking stove
and a dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

If only it wasn't raining and too dangerous for Mom's camera.
If only there were pictures of...

the bright snowsuits against the clean white snow
pink cheeks and noses under warm snow hats
a heap of laughing kids at the bottom of the hill
the way Grace would just lay there when she fell off the sled
Carver and Grace going down the sleds on their "bellies"
pulling them up the hill on the sleds
Grace's eyes hidden by her darling hat
Lydia's face as she FLEW down the big hill with Dad
racing 3 to a sled and crashing together at the bottom
the HUGE puddles of water on the roads since it was raining :)
Ellie mooching a ride on the sled anytime she could
me - because I was there, too!
It felt so good to play and not have a baby to look after!!

Oh, it was so fun!
so worth loads of laundry, cold feet & cookie crumbs in the van
I think 2010 is going to be a good year.