Well, today was Christopher's first basketball practice. You might have thought it was the end of the world.....or close to it.
The big guy came home sick from school Monday afternoon, and spent the next 8-10 hours alternately drinking Sprite and water and puking his guts out. So, even getting to basketball practice Tuesday night was in doubt. But, he woke up Tuesday, exclaimed "my tummy doesn't hurt!" (he was literally writhing in pain Monday evening..) and, after spending the morning at home, went to school at around 11 am. The last thing I told him was "I'll be getting you at Kids Club and then we'll be going to basketball. I know you don't want to go, I know you've been complaining....let's not have any problems."
Hah. Like that was going to work.
So, I get him, and immediately he's at it..."I don't want to go...you can't make me go....I'm not going to do it...I'm not going to do it"....and on and and on as he gets in the car...he hits me with his backpack, he pouts, he yells, he's not convinced by Kevin, who played 4 years of rec basketball and liked it, and is not swayed at all by understanding that Kevin had to try all the sports...that's the rule. Remind Christopher that we went through this before we went to the basketball clinic he wasn't happy about it and afterwards he said he had fun....no dice. No No No No NO! No means NO!
Steadily goes downhill from here....Christopher gets increasingly nasty towards me on the drive there and then, we arrive. He's still saying he's not going to do it as we walk in to the school and he barely can acknowledge the coach. He stands, on the side of the court, and doesn't participate for 10 minutes. He threatens to leave...I threaten him with a punishment of no TV for all of basketball season, and, that threat convinces him to stay.....I leave the gym for a while to leave him there by himself just watching and then, eventually, he goes over and begins to participate.
Let me backtrack here....the team, I see upon arriving, is a 2nd grade / 3rd grade team. Christopher knows some of the 3rd graders from Bennett Woods, but, that's about it. He's still the tallest kid here.
They start off doing suicides.....there's three pretty athletic third graders, they finish 1-2-3 and Christopher is 4th of the 7 that are there. They do a dribbling drill, he does ok....they do another dribbling drill with switching hands and he does, to me, awesome, some very nice switching of hands and moving through the slalom they set up. They do a passing and shooting drill and he scores a basket. And practice ends, and we go home, and I call Mom...and he takes the phone and tells Mom that he scored a basket(!) and had fun. And after the phone call ends, and the car is quiet for a moment, and we're listening to the radio, the big guy reaches over, takes my hand, and says "I'm sorry Dad"....
