Dave and Cathy's Family Blog

Here are the January highlights:

• We celebrate the new year with Tyson and Heidi, and Moshe and Shanon
• Lilah wins all her events at one of her swim meets
• Luke is involved in two accidents — one baseball related, and another one on his skateboard
• My cousin Julio (from Chile) stops in for a really quick visit

Kids Have a Great Time on New Year’s Eve

This New Year’s Eve we kept things simple by staying in town with some friends. We went to Tyson and Heidi’s house where Moshe and Shannon also joined us along with their kids Zach and Shayna. The plan was to have the kids (and adults) hang out, play games, and make pizzas. And, for the most part, all went according to plan. Using his culinary skills, Moshe provided us with a smorgasbord of great ingredients, including gourmet mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and some homemade pizza dough he rolled out for us individually, leaving us to the task of creating our own pies — delicious! The kids had a blast making and eating their own pizzas. They also enjoyed playing the game Cranium, a board game that involves some creative guessing games where teams try to guess the answers to a question by using clues they receive from their teammates. Team members can pick whether to draw, build, perform, or sing the clue. The next day, all the kids wanted to do was play charades as that was one of the ways clues could be presented in Cranium. Fun stuff.

Lilah Does Well at Local Swim Meet

A few things lined up perfectly last month to give Lilah a clean sweep of her events at one of her swim meets: 1) she started swimming three days a week instead of two so her conditioning was better; 2) we had to leave the meet early which meant Lilah did not have to compete in her final and weakest event (freestyle); 3) and, perhaps most importantly, the teammate who always beats her was not there. But hey, we’ll take the wins. Besides, that’s how it works in life I told Lilah — you can only win if you show up.

In addition to the swim meets, Lilah continues to do well at school. She frequently gets high scores in social studies even though she swears to hate the subject. She also does well on her spelling tests, despite her dad’s unintentional efforts to sabotage her success by forgetting to sign and date her spelling homework. So now, any time I have to review her work, Lilah sternly reminds me to sign it so that she does not lose points, or worse yet, receive an “incomplete” for her assignment.

Luke Has Two Unfortunate Accidents

Things were going a little too well last month with our skateboarding. We were going down some pretty steep hills. Luke even went down a hill that I later learned was about a 3.5 – 4% grade. I did not realize it was that steep until we were part of the way down and I could see Luke’s board wobbling from the speed. Fortunately, he made it down okay that day. The hill of his accident was the same one he recorded me coming down in his video shoot. He had probably gone down this descent 5 or 6 times before his accident, but on this particular day he took the turn a little too wide which caused him to lose control and slide onto the pavement going about 10 mph or so. Luckily, he was wearing a long sleeve, a canvas jacket and pants, as well as wrist guards and helmet. But even with that protection, he received abrasions on his elbows, knees, and waist. He was trying to hold the tears in after it happened, but when he saw some blood on his skin, he lost it and said he had ruined our skateboard time. I felt bad for the little guy, but one good thing that came out of all this is that Luke now insists on wearing his knee pads and elbow pads (items he didn’t want to wear before because they were too “itchy”).

I’m glad Luke is taking precautions now, especially after a lady at our YMCA told me that her 21-year old son was recently helicoptered to the emergency room after he crashed in a downhill skateboarding race. Her son actually blacked out after the crash and he had to have surgery to repair badly damaged kidneys. Hearing her story made me very thankful that Luke appears to have no interest in pursuing a downhill racing career. He only wants to cruise on easy hills with his dad and that is fine with me. In the end, it’s all about hanging out together.

We were doing just that (hanging out) when Luke had his second accident of the month right before his baseball skills assessment test. We were warming up by playing catch when the ball accidentally bounced out of Luke’s glove and hit him in the mouth. Luckily, the ball did not hit him hard, but it did nick him with enough force to draw some blood. When Luke saw the blood he broke down and said “Oh no, I don’t want to do this now,” referring to the skills assessment. It took him a while to calm down and forget about his lip, which he kept playing with while in the outfield, but eventually he mustered up the courage to get through the drills. However, the realization of just how easily my child could be hurt playing this sport had a pretty big effect on me for the rest of the day. To the point where I found myself getting upset with Little League’s rules of using a hard ball instead of a synthetic ball for 7- and 8-year old kids. I told Luke that if he wanted to do something else, like track or swimming (preferably something non-contact), I was all for it. Luke decided he still wants to play baseball, but I can tell that the ping on his lip has made him a bit more afraid of the ball. I think my job this season will be to help him build his skills so that he is confident again. Something I should be able to do in my role as assistant coach for spring league.

Even though it’s part of life, I still hate it when any of my kids get hurt. I get down on myself even more when I realize that I’m the one who put him into the situation. I imagine it’s much the same with most parents. Seeing your child in true pain can tie you up in knots and really test your mettle. It’s tough to stay calm in these situations, but I think it’s all you can do as you guide your child and yourself through the experience. It’s a test of character, right?

I think the universe owes me a little accident-free time. More next month…