Monday, April 2, 2007

Day 39 - 03/31/2007

Hi, this is N and I'm Coach M.

Today begins my career as a youth sports coach. In this case, I volunteered to help coach N's T-ball team. I'm not sure what to expect, but hopefully will have as much fun as I can, while attempting to teach the fundamentals of baseball to a group of 5-6 year olds. It should be interesting to say the least.

There are about a dozen or so kids on the team. Some of them are in his class, so that should make it better (for N) in terms of reducing his anxiety about playing. Not that he's shy or anything, but he seemed a bit nervous when we were walking towards the field (which quickly faded when he saw Tristan, one of his buddies from school). The first practice went fine, except for the fact that N didn't have a hat. He didn't like that and when they were handed out at the end of practice, he put it on his head, where it remained for pretty much the entire day.

M had softball practice in the morning, so when N and I got home, we hung out until she got home. The neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt was in the afternoon, so we had lunch and rode our bikes to the community center to meet D (she had volunteered to help out). I love it that we're able to ride around the neighborhood. I recall riding bikes with my family as a kid in Germany and continued to use the bike as a mode of transportation through college. It's a great form of exercise (even if it's not advertised as such) and it's a great way to do something as a family. Hopefully our family bike rides will become somewhat of a regular thing, especially as the kids get older and can go longer distances.

Saturday night M got in trouble (again). N got a bath in our tub and she thought it wasn't fair that he could get one in there, but that she had to take a shower in her bathroom. (It wasn't that she couldn't take one in there, she chose to take it in there.) Words were cast towards him about how she hated him, etc., and the next thing she knows, she's being sent to her room. I told her she needed to go apologize to her brother and then wait in her room until it was time to read Narnia, but she decided that that wasn't acceptable and was insubordinate towards me. The next thing you know, she's lost Narnia and Webkinz for the next week. After thinking about it further, I decided it wasn't fair to N to lose Narnia, since he didn't do anything wrong, so I changed the consequence from missing that to staying in her room from the time she got home from Mass on Sunday until dinner time. That didn't sit well.

That being said, once we read Narnia, she calmed down for the rest of the evening. I can't believe what a difference there is between hers and N's personalities. He's so very easy going, especially at bedtime and with regards to discipline, whereas she's a holy terror. I'm not sure if it's a result of her being the first and therefore we made most of our mistakes on her with regard to parenting, or if it's just her nature. I really don't know, but I do wish she'd learn to learn from her mistakes as it seems like this is becoming a weekly recurrence.

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