Standing back to back, my oldest son is no shorter than I am.
He’s no taller either. We are in equilibrium. Except he’s cackling with glee, and I’m depressed beyond words.
This tall stranger in my house is worthy of an update post; he’ll get it tomorrow (when I’m out of town on a 1 day visit to Minneapolis)…a post in three parts; track, student council president, and girls.
Lost 5-1 to Dewitt…if there was a fitting end to the season, this was it. Three of the first four Dewitt goals were off of clear simple mistakes on our part…don’t kick the ball to the middle on defense. We did, they stole it, and less than 30 seconds later they scored each time. The team hasn’t really listened to coaching all year so I guess having them make the most basic of mistakes after having 9 months of telling them not to do that is poetic justice in it’s fullest.
That one goal? Matthew…he lifted a nice pass from a teammate over the goalie from the right side into the side of the net. We, as a team, had plenty of chances…just no finishing again.
It’s over, and I get a three week reprieve from soccer until tryouts in mid-June. One more year of coaching for me and then I’m done….I’ll stick it out so that Christopher has a spot as he starts football and then he can decided what he wants to do with football and lacrosse as options.
…..took a little over a week to piece together this story….
Last weekend I went upstairs and smelled something burning…..it seemed strongest coming from Matthew’s room. Called Suzanne upstairs; she also smells it and we begin a frantic search to figure out what’s going on. Grab the ladder and check out the attic; no smell up there (this did lead to the boys getting one of their fondest wishes though…a chance to look up into the attic. Kind of boring overall though).
This happens as we’re about to leave for soccer….corner the boys and ask them very pointedly if they’ve done everything and explain that a lie here could come be devastating…we’d come back and the house would be burned down and dogs would be dead. No explanations forthcoming from Fric and Frac…
We shut off the ceiling fan and all the other electronics in Matthew’s room and head out….come home, smell is gone, not to return during the week at all. Maybe it did waft in from outside, but, it sure seems funny…..
Today, Suzanne is cleaning upstairs and notices that the lighter (one of those fire-starter thingies) that she uses for candles is missing…again, we corner the boys and ask them if they know what happened to it. Here, we get an answer…Christopher (who always seems to know where everything is) goes upstairs and promptly brings it down to Mom.
“Where was it Christopher?”
“In Matthew’s room.”
Again, ask Matthew if there’s anything that he’d like to tell us….not very forthcoming. Mom finally (after Dad leaves the room) coerces Matthew to finally spill the beans. He had collected the lighter and taken it to his room…and used it start a small fire on the fabric clothes-hanging storage unit in his room….it caught on fire, he blew on it(!) to put it out and finally used a rag or something to stop the festivities.
There’s more than a few “teaching” moments that went on after all the facts came together today…..it’s not even the fire that’s the worst of it, it’s the lying and not coming clean when the end result (house burned, pets dead) are clearly laid out in front of him (don’t think Christopher knew much about this….).
Sigh.
Tied Williamston 1-1. Took a 1-0 lead into the half and gave up a soft goal in the second half and couldn’t get another one (even though we definitely played to get the goal, instead of playing for the tie…..)
Maybe some video of this game later….Kevin did tape, but, I don’t think there’s a lot of highlights of each boy to see….may just do a compilation of each time one of them touches the ball like I did in the fall.
Matthew had a strong game, had at least one decent chance in near the goal but rushed it….Christopher had a strong game also, he’s taking my advice to just stay in front of the guy and that has stopped the lunging at the ball and the breakaways the other team gets because of the lunging.
Last game tomorrow!!!!
For a long time, Holly was content to just hang around in the yard with Wiley….sadly for Holly, she’s gotten more adventurous as she’s gotten older and after more then a few trips out into the street we finally had to buckle down and implement the fence training.
Wiley’s been really good about it, so much so that we haven’t had the collar on him all the time….he would inevitably creep closer and closer to the line and we’d put the collar back on him for a week. He’d get zapped, promptly move back several feet, and we’d march on for another couple of months.
For Holly’s training, we had to go back to step one though…get more flags and set them up all over the yard. We’ve moved Wiley’s collar over to Holly, and she’s getting the picture pretty quickly (she took a pretty nasty zap the other day while following Christopher out of the yard…Christopher had a hot dog, and she was all interested in the food, and forgot, and there was a pretty good yelp from out front and a dog retreating to the porch).
Wiley is deeply traumatized by the appearance of the white flags…he may have post-traumatic training disorder or something. When I brought the flags home, in a bundle, he saw them and took off. Now, with the flags surrounding the yard, he refuses to go outside! I had to physically drag him out to the back yard tonight, and the front yard is a complete non-starter…he won’t step off the porch!
We’re hoping he comes around soon; the flags have to be up for a while so that Holly gets the full and complete picture of what she can and can’t do and if Wiley isn’t going to go out (and there’s no chance he’s going to get shocked..the collar is on Holly!) without a kick in the butt it’s going to be a long month or so……
Had more pictures from Saturday emailed me today, so, figured I’d get them up here quickly
Matthew moving up field in the second half.
Our soccer year-end party is next Sunday; we’re getting the boys trophies and we are also giving them certificates.
Had the idea to ‘theme’ the certificates using super-heroes. Here are Matthew’s and Christopher’s. Don’t tell them!
It was pretty easy to match a super hero up with Matthew….
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For the curious, I used Batman, Green Lantern, Dash (from the “Incredibles”…could have been the Flash I guess), Spider Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Shrek, and Thor for the rest of the team. Don’t know why, but, I didn’t feel comfortable using Superman…..
Tied St. Johns 2-2; we lost to them 2-0 in game three so this is an improvement. It’s a major improvement given how we started off; Matthew in goal giving up two really soft soft goals. Don’t know what happened and why he was so tentative but he didn’t play in goal like I’ve ever seen him before and sadly, his Dad yelled at him quite a bit to get his act together.
He did though, and played well for the rest of the half and had his chances in the second half as we rallied to tie the game.
Christopher played really well….asked him to ‘jockey’ back like we’ve asked but to try and cut down on the lunging to attack…just keep jockeying back and keep the ball between him and the goal and when the guy kicks it into his legs take it from him. He was very solid doing just that.
Two games left; both next weekend and then the year-end party.
We’ve collected more than a few pictures of the boys in the last couple of games, from our camera and from others, so, figured I’d trot them out here.
Picture is a really good shot of Evan, who is doing a great job here, but, I really enjoy the look of the big guy in the background, rocking his new short haircut.
The team doing what we want them to do; one player going wide with the ball while someone else comes down to the middle (the “sweet spot”) and waits/hopes for the pass. Matthew is where he needs to be, but, I don’t recall whether the ball made it over to him…I know he didn’t score in this game
Oh, we have the next picture in sequence…the ball didn’t make it over to Matthew. But I’m happy with how the team is positioned here, Aidan has driven the ball down, tried to center it, and Zal has arrived behind Matthew and Aidan in that space between them.
And another picture in sequence; Zal got the ball, carried it down closer to the endline, and Matthew is again in the perfect spot hoping for the ball. Still don’t remember much coming out of this, but, am really pleased in hindsight that we had this kind of spacing and effort going on.
Christopher taking a goal kick; we’re working on his form a lot right now, trying to get him not to ‘toe’ the ball so much and hit with the top of his foot instead (toe down towards the ground instead of into the ball). This kick is very clearly a toe ball and he has his weight back instead of forward….
Can’t tell here whether Christopher is kicking the ball away or getting ready to defend this kick coming in…
I’m not sure what the heck is going on here…don’t understand why Matthew is up in the air (getting ready to block something? we try and tell the boys not to do this and to stay on the ground). Our team is heading away from us, but, given the way we’re all in a group over here, I’m guessing the other team had the ball and was coming upfield….
This is from the tournament in the 2nd game, after Matthew has scored his first goal.
ready for action
I don’t know where this ball is except up…I’m sure that Matthew is going to get it though!
We’ve just thrown the ball in and it’s a good throw; down the line, away from the other team and Matthew (and others) are hustling to get there
I went to great lengths describing this goal a few weeks back…Matthew is just about to finish his good work here…he’s completely fooled the kid to the left of him (who was right in front of him at one point) and had cleared himself a path for the shot…the ball looks to be on his left foot but I think it’s actually rolling from left to right and Matthew has planted his left foot to take the shot. You can see the right foot coming through to put that ball in that big empty net to the left of the goalie.
Friday is a busy busy day…I have to go to Kalamazoo for work (that’s 3 hours in the car…keep count). Get back in time to take boys to the first community soccer night….they had a good time, free hot dogs, got to do a lot of little games and skill contests and picked up some free candy for their trouble.
Kevin has a track meet up in St. Johns; Mom has to go and get Kevin from the track meet early because Kevin needs to get back down to Mason for the last concert with the Mason orchestra.
We accomplish all of this with the spectre of having to get Kevin out to Blue Lake this weekend as well hanging over our head. He was supposed to be there by 6 pm, but, because of the concert, we asked for and received permission to either get there late Friday night (but not after 10:40 pm) or early Saturday morning (and that would mean being there by 6:30 am).
The Saturday morning arrival would have meant leaving here at 4:30 am or something, so, after really plotting things out, it becomes clear that Kevin will be done by 9 pm and we can get him out there Friday night. So, we pack everything up Thursday night…put that stuff in my car, put the stuff Kevin needs in Mom’s car (track meet switching to orchestra). Double check that we have everything…go!
Meet up with Mom down in Mason. Kevin performs, they have intermission, we have to stay for the announcement of the scholarship after intermission, and then we can bolt. At intermission, I make the fatal mistake of saying that we should get everything we can out of the auditorium so we don’t make a big commotion as we leave…..ask the boys to wait outside for that 5 minutes, and Mom takes Kevin’s viola to her car.
Intermission ends; they award the scholarships (Kevin is not the main winner, but, does receive a $200 to assist with his trip this summer). He comes off stage and we leave and head out to the parking lot. Kevin collects what he needs from Mom’s car and we are westbound.
Get to Blue Lake at 10:30 pm. Camp is pitch black, find Kevin’s cabin…start unpacking and Kevin says “where’s my viola?”
……
(what Scott was thinking at that moment is censored here).
….. If we had gotten there at 6 pm without it, there’s a chance that we would have been able to find an extra viola hanging around Blue Lake; they said that this happens every once a while and the guy in the cabin knows there are a few extras lying around. But, he’s not sure if they would be there this early in the season, and, it’s 10 minutes to lights out, and, well, our choices are limited.
I head home (get back at 12:45 am) to collect the viola and get up at 5 am to get it back out to Kevin before he needs it. His first rehearsal is at 8 am, so, I guess I could have slept in another hour, but, figure I should get there early and get it to him before he leaves his cabin so he doesn’t stress out about it.
The driving count, 2 hours out, 2 hours back, 2 hours out the next morning. Get back there at 6:45 am….pull in and Kevin is walking with his group to breakfast a little earlier than the schedule said and he is walking down the road I pull up to his cabin on….I hop out, he takes the viola (voila, a viola!) and heads out. I’m glad I got there early, if I hadn’t, I would have had to find him wherever he may have gone at the camp.
Ugh. 2 hour back the next morning. That’s 11 hours of driving in 24 hours.
Bright side: we now have a really good object lesson to reinforce one of our major concerns…losing track of personal belongings while in Europe. He’s not completely to blame here, I’m not sure if he hit the 50% mark, but, hopefully we all learn from it…
“Got a beat-up glove, a homemade bat, and brand-new pair of shoes;
You know I think it’s time to give this game a ride.
Just to hit the ball and touch ’em all - a moment in the sun;
(pop) it’s gone and you can tell that one goodbye!”
As the long and tortured soccer season grinds to a close baseball season begins to kick in to gear. Last year, we had the boys on the same team, and while that was a long season, it’s not nearly as bad as this year, when they are now on different teams, and there is a practice or game every night for the most part until the end of June.
Christopher had his first practice on Monday….he was very vocal and upset that we signed him up for baseball again and I had told myself if we got there and he didn’t know anyone on the team I would be all for bailing out if that’s what he wanted to do.
Of course, we’re walking out, he looks at me and tells me he had fun. Again(!), no one from his school and grade on the team (although I did see one other classmate on another team). He did know over half the team though from other places, so, that was good.
This year is the first year of kid-pitch…..I watched most of practice to see how the big guy did and it’s pretty clear that pitching won’t be his strength (and that’s the whole problem…he doesn’t have a lot of velocity on his throws…). But, he was doing a much better job than I would have though snagging fly balls so that’s a good sign. They did no hitting at all at practice yesterday so we’ll see how that turns out.
Will provide a Matthew update after his practices start; today’s was rained out.
Up and at it on Sunday again….another early start (pre 7 am), sadly for Mom, there’s no sleeping in on her day.
This round yellow thing was hanging in the sky for our game, so, that offset the 40 degrees of temperature we had (games were delayed for 30 minutes for frost….).
The Game: We lost, 6-3, which looks a lot closer than it really was….we were down 4-0 about ten minutes in. Boys played ok; again, had a Christopher lapse right at the beginning but he played well as the game went on…..need to figure out how to have him moving and going right at the start in a more consistent fashion. Matthew had an assist that Dad didn’t properly recognize, so, after being castigated about that I have to reward him with the $5 of ice cream goodness at our next practice.
Tournament ended with us going 1-2….wish we had won that first game. Really really happy with how Matthew played; 2 goals and 2 assists in our 8 goals says it all. Christopher, for all my typing about lapses, had long stretches of solid solid play, sadly, any mistake he has is almost always going to lead to a goal scored against us, so, he gets dinged more than when things don’t go right.
The team is participating in the Midland Invitational Tournament this weekend.
Weather: Oh man did it stink today. For our two games it never got warmer than 42 degrees, always cloudy, with the wind coming from the west at a brisk 20 mph. Your soccer players? Dressed in undershirt, sweatshirt, and then the jersey, with a jacket to wear while on the bench. Mom and Kevin? Froze their butts off….
Midland: For a city that’s 66 miles away as the crow flies; it’s an ugly 1 hour 40 minute drive from here. That means an early early start…we were out the door at 6:20 am to get there so I can register the team….First game is at 9:15. All of the hotels within 30 miles are either sold out or cost over $120 a night so the team made the decision to drive up and back both days……
Game 1: Played the Midland Fusion team. Game dynamics are a little weird; if you were playing with the wind you dominated play and your goal kicks went 3/4 of the way down the field, if not completely off of it. Team continued it’s non-passing ways and gave up a goal late to lose 3-2. The second goal we scored was off a nice little pass by Matthew, who had the ball in front of the goal with the defender in front of him and chose not to shoot but to slide it over to his open teammate. Christopher played ok, but, still needs to work on not lunging at the ball…..a little more hustle would have helped too….this was a problem with everyone since it was easy to stick your hands in your pockets. He wasn’t the only offender.
Game 2: Had to wait three hours after the first loss to play the second game….a lot of time to sit and stew over the loss. We’ve been trying to think of the next incentive for the boys, what we want them to do to get another ice cream gift card and before the game I tell the boys, you get an assist….you pass the ball and we get a goal, you get the reward. Maybe that will open up the passing.
We win 3-1 against a team from Grand Haven. Their one goal is a fluke from the wind (which they had in the first half), their goalie punted it the whole field and our goalie fumbled it…and they swooped in and scored. Our second goal was a fluke….in the second half we had the wind and Christopher booted it 2/3 of the field, bounced it off the goal post(!) and we collected the rebound and scored.
The other two goals were not flukes….and Matthew had both of them. In the first half he closed in and took a shot that bounced through the goalie’s hands and went in. Late in the 2nd half he collected a great pass in front of the goal, turned on the defender and did his ‘move’ that you can see over and over on his videos…fake left, cut right, and take the shot. He made this move, cut right and I saw the kid not follow and I knew, knew that the ball was going in…..and he finishes just like I think he will…..he just absolutely buried it. He comes off after the goal and the other coach scoops him up and turns him upside-down in celebration….his teammate gets the gift card for the assist. Mom wanted a goal for Mother’s Day; she got two!
I think that one of the other parents may have got some video of the second goal…my family wasn’t taping (it was wet, and really windy….so, completely understandable).
We play at least one game tomorrow….if we lose we’re done, but, if we win, we move on to the championship.
Lost to Williamston 2-1. For the giant steps forward we made on Tuesday night, this would be two steps back.
Both goals scored while Christopher was on the field; both directly result from him basically saying ‘Ole’ as he attempts to get the ball, misses, and the guy just blows by on a breakaway. Had a talk with him after the first one (about a minute into the game) and re-explained the ‘jockeying’ technique we’ve been asking the kids to use ad-infinitum on defense and reinforced, again, not to lunge at the ball…….and he went in and played awesome smart defense for the rest of the first half and the second half. And then had a brain fart and forgot and the tie game turned into a 2-1 lead for the other team with 2 minutes left to go.
Matthew was there; had two chances in the first half and rushed both and didn’t get great shots on goal…wasn’t really a factor in the second half that much.
The cats are not making me very happy recently; they are doing the usual cull from the wild, but, they aren’t finishing the job, leaving it up to me to dispatch the small animals. This leaves me feeling sad and guilty. Holly is more than glad to step up on this disposal front; most mornings now are a race to find the ‘stuff’ and get rid of it before she does.
Event numero uno: The night of the family fun fair I got home about 45 minutes after the family; not sure what went on before I got home, but, I walked upstairs and found Marino next to this furry…thing. A momentary thought was “what kid toy was this” before I realized it was a junior rabbit (I called it a baby back then; I need to save that distinction for the next paragraph). Drop what I’m doing and try and find something to get Bugs out of the house before the kids figure out what is going on……pick up the bunny and trudge outside.
You, the reader, may be asking what comes next? How do you dispose of almost-dead animals? Is one method more humane than others? Take a moment…think of your options…….
Dead animals that are discovered outside our home are unceremoniously dumped in the storm grate on the street out front….this method completely removes the remains from where Wiley and Holly could get at it. Had a second thought about going this route this time, but, in the end, figured the 8 foot drop and the water at the bottom was a cleaner way out than suffering in the trashcan.
Event numero dos: The last two nights I’ve opened the door to find the remains of these gray…things. Not sure what they are, they've been chewed up enough that I can’t figure it out. Trudge out to the street…end of problem. I’m mowing the yard today and notice that in the next ‘row’ over that I’m about to mow there’s another one of these items. Shut off the lawnmower, get the shovel, look down, see little ears, realize that these things are actually baby baby bunnies….not a hair on them. Scoop the shovel down and get a huge surprise…this one is completely alive and starts crying in distress.
Can’t let it go, can I? Nope, no mom around, this thing will just end up on the front porch within 24 hours. Can’t really stop what I’m doing….boys are on the other side of the yard and having them see this is not an option….I don’t need the drama of having to explain there is no other option.
Splash goes the bunny at the bottom of the manhole. The cats better improve the follow through soon!
My coaching partner has promised the boys rewards for certain things during games…..he’s delivered Code Blue Mountain Dew (be carefully when mixing with 8 and 9 year olds…can cause spontaneous combustion!), etc. The most recent promise was ice cream at the new shop that just opened up here in town to the kids who a) crossed the ball into the center and b) the kid who poked it in the net.
We’re paying at Dewitt tonight; it’s a one goal game and the lead has gone back and forth and been tied….we’re in the second half and our pleading with the boys to hustle twice as hard as the game grows late is paying off….lots of good effort out there.
Matthew has the ball, he’s heading down the right side of the field….he’s heading down towards the corner, maybe 5 yards from the end line and has this beautiful cross right back to what we call the ‘sweet spot’, about 10 yards out from the goal mouth where his teammate Aidan is waiting for it and just buries it. Everyone is shouting “there’s the ice cream goal!”
We won 4-3; tied at the half 1-1. Gave up a goal in the second half that never never should have happened but, unlike other games, took the play to the other team in the second half and good things will come when you do that…one goal was some slick passing in front of the goal and another was a rebound off the goalie.
Matthew had another beautiful chance in the first half….he was in the ‘sweet spot’ right as the first half ended and got a cross that took a bounce right as he planted to kick it…he sailed it over the goal (and that was a feat…the goals at Dewitt are about 2’ taller than the goals we are used to).
Christopher had a good game; pretty unspectacular as he did what we want him to do…deny the other team chances at goal. We mixed it up a little on defense and put one of our really athletic kids back on defense specifically to punch the ball out with giant kicks to the offense…this reduced Christopher’s work to pretty much holding the fort on the backline. He did it well; he wasn’t on the field for any of the other teams goals.
The parents agreed that it was the most-exciting game we’ve had this year; lots of back and forth play on the field and on the scoreboard.
This is Matthew. This is the 2nd time that repeated exposure to something (the Gulf, Grandma’s pool, aliens) in Florida have left him with bumps everywhere. This picture is early in the proceedings; a day or two later they were at least twice as many extending down his trunk. Thankfully, everything fades away after about a week…..may need to pre-emptively strike with Benadryl next time.
On the trip north from Florida Christopher decided that he would rather spend most of the afternoon riding shotgun with me than hanging out in the back. For the most part, he read books out loud to me; I think the one in his hands in this picture he used to regale me with animal trivia. I’m guessing, from the amount of green in the trees and the amount of blue in the sky, that we were somewhere in Kentucky.
The latest handy feature of the iphone isn’t a new one, but, me using something I’ve never known about before. The Iphone has a pretty nifty map feature, and, like google, it will show you traffic. I always wondered how accurate that traffic is, and we put it to the test on the trip to and from Florida. On the way there, I was stopped on the freeway for no reason, checked the map, the highway was dutifully shaded red, starting right about where we stopped. These two maps are from near Indianapolis, the one on the left shows smooth sailing as we’ve just turned onto I-69 from I-465. The one on the right shows that we’re about to have to slow down, and sure enough, right after that curve the left land ended and we had to merge and slow down. Christopher got a kick out of helping me with traffic navigation “just tell me if you see yellow or red, ok”? “Ok!”
Some Matthew Art I saw hanging at the school while I was there for some random purpose last week; haven’t had a chance to ask him what this is….
Soccer and baseball practice today were wiped out by the first thunderstorms of the season…while we were waiting for one of the soccer mom’s to show up we were treated to some spectacular rainbows; the double rainbow to start things off and then the sunlight shining through to really illuminate parts of the lower rainbow towards the end.
Got the news back from the Geek Squad today; seems pretty unlikely that we’ll be able to recover anything off of that hard drive.
I had resolved myself to the high cost of recovery, but, not so much to the prospect of years of video and pictures being lost forever. So, it’s a pretty disheartening day, where I’m left trying to find the bright side of things.
Video: Thankfully, I started this blog right about the time I really started videotaping, so, as I taped and edited I uploaded. And all of that video is still around. Now, it’s not in the same resolution (if you upload 20M of video to One True Media, you probably end up downloading 1-2 M), and that’s not great, but, right now, the phrase “better than nothing” is important. I will be spending the weekend out at One True Media and Shutterfly downloading the video I’ve uploaded over time. There are some things I had digital (El Paso video, Rasefske’s) that now I only have on DVD as well….
Photos: The loss here isn’t as great as I might have thought either….anything important that was digital has been sent up to Shutterfly long ago and we can get that back, but, not at the same resolution, and, if we really need that, we can order the photo and have it printed and it will be close. A while back Suzanne went through an effort to print a lot of those Shutterfly photos, so, at least we have them in that archaic “hard-copy” photo and anything in the last year probably survived completely intact.
Music: The thing I could care about the least is the thing I lost nothing of…mostly because I use it the most and had just done a backup or transfer about 2 weeks before the crash happened.
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid. Will never buy a Seagate hard drive again!
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