Michael played in his first tennis tournament this morning. It was a round robin tournament, against kids in the neighborhood. He did well but he didn’t make it to the finals – as Coach pointed out, all the kids who made it are the oldest in the group and they have been playing the longest. Michael has been playing about 5 weeks.
He was not pleased about his poor showing, however. Logic had nothing to do with it. he plays to win.
He almost didn’t play. We had a real shouting match over his shirt. He wanted to wear a long tee shirt and I said nope, you need a shorter shirt so you can retrieve your balls from your pocket quickly. He refused, even after the coach told him he had to wear a shorter shirt. I was so ticked off. I finally realized, Michael was nervous. The way he copes is that he gets very obstinate and cranky. I gave him some TLC and cajoled him into wearing the right shirt.
Next week at their first official match they are supposed to all have team shirts, thank God.
It was almost 2 by the time we ate lunch. We went to the fish store, and the produce stand. I got some fruit for tomorrow. I am hosting a MAPREC pool party and I wanted to take a fruit tray. Alesia cut up watermelon and I cut up a cantaloupe and washed some strawberries.
I must admit something here - I occasionally spend some time surfing YouTube and the kids and I watch various videos, almost always funny ones. [They have NO access to the internet at my house without my direct supervision.] While Mike and I are watching, Alesia comes in carrying a huge bowl of what I think is just cut up fruit - apples, plums, etc. Then I notice at the bottom she has a number of tiny tomatoes from our garden, and cucumbers, cut up! It's a fruit AND veggie salad. Great snack. She just sat there and methodically ate it. If I ate something like that I'd have to sprint for the bathroom!
Oh, I forgot to mention something interesting. I stopped on the way home yesterday and bought Michael a recorder, for music class. I kept forgetting to give him the money and he needed to work on the fingering, I felt. I didn’t want to come home with nothing for Alesia, so I got her a set of bongo drums that were on sale.
Mike loves both instruments. Alesia looked at the bongo drums like, are you kidding me?! She has a great sense of rythm but she just didn’t get into the drums. I have to confess something here – I LOVE the bongos! I had such a good time this afternoon playing music and playing the drums along with the music.
I felt very primitive. I had this funny image of my Celtic ancestors with blue faces talking through my DNA going “Aye girl!!” or whatever. Somehow when I hear my Celtic ancestor voices in my head they sound disturbingly like the little cartoon characters on the Lucky Charms commercials….
Mike likes to beat the bongos too. We found he does best with an old toothbrush. Very therapeutic.
His favorite way to hang out around the house is without a shirt. He likes to bop around in his boxers, too, and leave his shoes everywhere. He also likes to pour hot sauce all over his meat. Reminds me soooooo much of his grandfather it's eerie...
