Calling his shot

Every soccer practice begins with the boys racing to a nearby fence and back, a distance of about 200m.  One time earlier in the season, Jackson told me he won the race but I explained he was disqualified (by me, the coach didn't say anything) since he turned back before actually making the fence.  To Jackson's credit, he has not short-cut the run since.

At the second to last practice, he won the race after the coach disqualified half the team, including several of the fastest runners, for not going all the way to the fence.  This time the coach made the short-cutters re-run the warm-up. 

Driving to the last practice, Jackson told me he was going to win the race -- something he has never done against a full field of his teammates.  Hoping to head-off disappointment, I told him that trying his hardest was what was important and the result would be what the result would be (besides, it's currently en vogue in parenting literature to praise the effort rather than the result). 

I watch intently as the coach sends the boys off on their warm-up run.  Jackson doesn't have a good starting position, but by 1/4 way he is in the lead.  He's first to reach the fence.  At about the 3/4 mark, one of his challengers stumbles and falls.  It's a two man race at that point and Jackson has a sizable lead, but you can see he is tiring and his teammate is gaining.  But Jackson keeps his feet and keeps going and crosses the finish line several strides ahead.

On the car ride home from practice, I casually asked Jackson what he liked about the practice, and he started gushing about winning the race.  After he finished, I told him how proud I was of his effort in the race and that good things often happen when we try hard.

Jackson's response:  "so...can I get an extra cookie after dinner?"

My response:  (chuckle) "good timing, but, no, I think winning the race was reward enough"

Surprise visitors

Last Tuesday, we came home to see peacocks eating all mommy's tomatoes!

Jackson shooed them away

Herding them back to their street

Norah gets her bedroom

This week we moved Norah to her upstairs bedroom.

We flew a kite the first time this morning. And it was a big success.

Proud parents moment

Last week we bumped into Ms. Crisman (his afternoon teacher) outside of the school on our way picking up the kids. Ms. Crisman asked us if we knew about the pine cones.

She was building a bug hotel for the class and mentioned it would be good to have pine cones. And the next day Jackson brought her a bag of pine cones! She was amazed how considerate Jackson is when he does such things unprompted.

Jackson collected those pine cones with Grandma and Grandpa during his two-day sleep over. And he just thought about them and took them to school one morning.

We were proud parents for that boy. :-)

Our weekend

Norah loved Albertson's little shopping cart

Jackson's first time on a trailer bike 

Norbuck park

This weekend we packed in lots of activities as usual. We Picked up Jackson at Plano from his sleepover at Grandparents'. Headed to Monster Yogurt for a treat after nap. Stopped by Albertson's for using their training shopping cart. Sunday morning Jackson got on his trailer bike and we took a small loop around the Mockingbird bridge. Playground is always our default stop on our bike rides. Afternoon we went for a subway and trolley ride to Clyde Warren Park. It was their jazz on the green concert and that park was jammed with people.

Happy kids, exhausted parents! :-)

Fish rescue mission

In a puddle close to our house, we found several big fish stranded after flood swept them there. Our mission Sunday afternoon was to rescue those fish.

We took the tools we had available and headed over. Those fish are much bigger than I originally thought and they put up a big fight.

Our net is not ideal for this purpose and by sheer luck, we caught one. But the wire tip holding the net hurt the fish and it was flipping and flopping on the ground, freaking Norah out. It is easily a 10 lbs fish.

We released the carp to White Rock Creek and decided to abort the mission. Our tool made the fish bled and Norah was a bit shaken up and our shoes are muddy.

Thomas ride 2018

Sunday we braved the cold and rode Thomas again. Jackson made a superb impersonation of Thomas.