Figure it might be worth a few paragraphs to write down some thoughts on each boy.
Getting very tall very quickly; he's about 4-5 inches short of Mom and Dad and that could disappear at any time. Orthodontics are almost over; he wears the retainer only at night now...hopefully, that will be the end of it. Still skinny and doesn't eat very much at all at times (although there are times where he just packs it away....when he does that and Christopher is on his game, the food disappears pretty quick around here!).
School goes well; it certainly feels like he can get A's without even trying (and the 2nd trimester report card was exactly that). Had a close call in math....he's not doing as well on the tests and quizzes and the homework grades pull his scores up, and Mom and Dad have made it clear that the tests and quiz scores are going to come up or there will be repercussions (this is long-winded for...."you need to study before tests"....). Will have to ask what he wants to be when he grows up....not sure if geography-meteorologist is still up there. If he had to name colleges, it would be Northwestern and the University of Washington.
Viola is still there, and Kevin hasn't been as diligent about practicing at home recently, and, again, Mom and Dad have been harping on him about that. Part of it has to be the return of nice weather, but, part of it is just a general disposition to be a teenager and sit around and do nothing for long periods of time. We finally received the DVD from the All-State Orchestra performance, and the video of the six pieces is below.
Kevin is still running twice a week, and track starts next week at school. The first 5K of the year is March 28, so, Mom and Dad are curious to see how Kevin does here......we have to think that he'll do much better than the disastrous run on Super Bowl Sunday and have some concerns (ok, I have some concerns...) that, as much as Kevin's been training, he's been half-assing it, and won't have much to show for it. We'll see....
Kevin's been reading more lately...he's reading "The Rising Tide", historical fiction by Michael Shaara about World War II. Reading two or three months was like viola now....Kevin wasn't doing much of it and was just taking forever to finish a book (it took him about 6 weeks to finish "To Kill a Mockingbird"...he just wasn't trying very hard at it). I think Mom and Dad have pushed the message home here.....we expect him to keep reading and the school minimum (70 minutes a week, 10 minutes a day) isn't enough.
Socially? Mom and Dad think that Kevin has a wide and diverse group of friends, but, don't think that he has one best friend or two to five great friends. We've asked Kevin if he wants to have some friends over for a NCAA-party, or, a movie party, or a bowling event or something and he has no interest in hosting an event. The flip side of this is that he hasn't been invited to an event in a long time, and, the one this year that he was invited to he just assumed Mom and Dad would say 'no' (we were going out that night for something) and didn't tell us about it until too late (and he was surprised to find out that Mom and Dad would have changed our plans so that he could have gone). His lunch time crowd has changed three times this year; went from all boys to all girls to a mix of both with not a lot of crossover between the groups. Girlfriend? ....we don't think he's there yet.....we could be wrong!
The looming bad times? I've explained to Kevin that he's totally mangled his firstborn duties of supporting the Steelers, and while his recent acceptance of the Black and Gold is good, this Seahawk nonsense is tough to deal with. His only other firstborn duty is to faithfully attend the new Trek movie with me, and the little turkey is waffling on it! He's been told, if he's not there on opening night, he's going to Lansing Community College!
