Derek's Birthday Sleepover

On Friday night Derek had several friends over to celebrate his 9th birthday. He's been so excited about the party. All week he told us how he couldn't wait for his party. He would randomly drop various aspects about his party into all conversations - for example, "Daddy, did you know that Justin's bringing his Wii?" or make sure that we had a specific part of the party plan in place - for example, "Mommy, can you make pancakes for breakfast?".

The party list included his classmates Jacob, Trevor, Justin, and Jeremy (Ryan couldn't make it). Trevor and Justin came over early. Justin was supposed to go to soccer practice, but was too excited about the party and talked his parents into skipping his practice. Jacob and Jeremy showed up after their soccer practice.

Adam played with everyone for a little while. The older kids were very nice to Adam and Adam had fun being involved. We made plans ahead of time for Adam to sleep over his friend Ryan's house. So, when I got home I spent a little time with Adam before Ryan's family picked him up to go out to dinner. Adam was very excited when he found out they were going to the sushi place - his favorite. He doesn't actually eat sushi, but he loves teriyaki chicken and rice.

Trevor was a little guy, but quite the agressor. When play started getting a little rough, Helen sent them all outside. Helen picked up the Baskin Robbin's Ice Cream cake and I picked up the Johnny's Pizza on my way home. The kids were in Derek's room building Lego's when I got home. When everyone arrived we had pizza and cake, and then opened presents. Derek got some games (Yahtzee, Mangala, Rummikub ), a Bionicle, and a gift card. Then Trevor, who had not planned on spending the night, went home - thankfully.

I setup the Wii and the boys spent a couple hours playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl. We started winding them down about 11. They did some dueling with their Yu-Gi-Oh cards before we turned out the lights. Everyone slept in sleeping bags in the family room. Jeremy claimed he always wakes up around 6 am, so the kids appointed him the official alarm clock so that they could wake up and play some more Mario Smash Brothers.

They went to sleep without a problem, but sure enough - they resumed their playing a little after 6 am. Helen made pancakes, eggs, and sausage for breakfast and they all had healthy appetites. I helped cleanup and organize things for the pickup, but I had to leave for tennis about 8:30. Helen said all the parents came a little before 10. All in all it went smoothly. The kids (except Trevor) were very well mannered and had neat personalities.

Easter

The Easter Bunny visited Saturday night and hid some eggs that the boys had fun searching for on Easter morning. The boys filled up on chocolate and jelly beans for breakfast. In the afternoon, we went over to Helen's parent's house. Little cousin Lindsay was resplendent in her Easter dress and first haircut. We all filled up on appetizers and then followed up with a big Easter dinner and dessert. Paul and Agatha told us about the 7 hour canoe trip they did on Saturday and Mike and Chris gave us the details on the Easter egg hunt they went to where the Easter Bunny dropped eggs from a helicopter.

As is tradition, we celebrate the boy's birthdays with Helen's family on Easter. Usually Easter is after their birthdays, but this year Easter is so early that it came before their birthdays. It makes no difference to them - they still get cake and presents. Nanna made them each a special cake. For gifts they received Legos, remote control cars, and some cold hard cash to put towards a Wii game console.

Baseball and Easter Eggs

On Saturday we invited my family to watch some baseball and decorate Easter eggs. The original plan was to watch Adam's game in the morning and then come back to our house to decorate eggs before heading back for Derek's game in the late afternoon, but Derek's baseball pictures were rescheduled for 1:00 so that we wouldn't really have time to return home between games.

So we packed a picnic instead. I met everyone at the park after my tennis match. Adam's game was already over and the picnic was already in progress. We ate, played on the playground with the kids, decorated eggs, and then went to Derek's game at 3:00. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed seeing everyone, but after being in the sun all day we were done.

When we got home, we shooed away all the neighborhood kids that were tempting our kids to go play, and we sent the boys upstairs to take a shower. We all shut it down and watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. We were a little worried that it might be too scary for the boys, but they didn't seem to mind.

Easter Egg Hunt

Last weekend we had the neighborhood Easter egg hunt, which always takes place in our neighbor's yard across the street. The previous owners, the Lokey's, started the tradition and told the current owner's, the Levy's, that they had to continue the tradition.

Stormy Weather

We had some stormy weather this weekend. A tornado even hit downtown Atlanta. The SEC basketball tournament had to be moved from the Georgia Dome to Georgia Tech where the hated Bulldogs won the championship - on our court...total desecration.

We were up Friday night watching the History Channel's "360: Battle for Guadalcanal" with the boys when the wind and the lightning started. There was no real damage in our area and we didn't realize that so much damage had been done in the surrounding area until the next morning.

Saturday was opening day and picture day for baseball...all canceled. It was also opening day for the ALTA tennis league. Luckily our match was away, so the other team spent all morning cleaning the courts and then we took all 5 matches before the rain came again.

Helen and the boys managed to get grocery shopping in before the rain. We had big plans of getting the boys to try on all their spring clothes to see if they need new clothes, but never made it. Helen took a nap and Derek talked me into finally putting together the telescope my Dad had gotten for me when Derek was about 2. It's been sitting in the closet waiting for the boys to get old enough to know better than to mess with it. Derek was all excited, but when I opened the box all the smaller boxes inside were empty! There was a traveling bag with some lenses and other stuff, but the tripod and the main lens were gone. I left a message for my Dad to see if maybe it was a display item that never got put back in the box. It's very strange. I'm irritated at my own personal failure for not ever opening the box to verify that all the pieces were there....arghhh!

Then the skies opened up and it started to hail...really hail. First marbles and then golf balls. We were all running around the house checking it out. When it started to subside Adam put on his bicycle helmet and went outside to collect some of the ice balls. Soon all the neighbors started appearing from their houses like munchkins in the Wizard of Oz.

What's New?

We had a small respite from the rat race because it rained all day Friday forcing the cancellation of Adam's baseball practices on Friday night and Saturday morning. Derek's practice late Saturday afternoon was moved to an indoor facility. The kids were a little unnerved hitting within the confines of the indoor batting cages.

I picked up a cup and some batting gloves for Derek. Adam's hands are still too small for batting gloves. Derek needs a cup because he might play catcher some. He wore it to his practice game last night, but didn't tell the coach that he had a cup until the game was almost over so he didn't get to catch. He seemed disappointed. Adam had a practice game last night. Derek went with me and skateboarded around. Helen had her weekly tennis practice\round robin.

We're hoping to avoid the flu. It seems like people all around us have had it. I played tennis Sunday morning and then felt really drained and shut it down. Helen felt drained last night and is hoping to get some rest to nip it in the bud. Several years ago we all had it for the first time that we could remember, so we got flu shots for the next couple years. Then a couple years ago Adam still got the flu right before our ski trip and we all had to take Tamiflu, which made us all feel like we had the flu also. After that, we haven't gotten flu shots the past couple years and have been fine - so far.

Helen spent a lot of time grading papers last weekend and felt much better in terms of being on top of her work. She estimated a couple weeks ago that it would take her about 9 hours to get caught up on her grading. She tells me often how she really needs to grade some papers and I say ok and that I will take care of the kids, but then she says that she doesn't want to grade papers. She "needs" to, but she doesn't "want" to. So she keeps putting it off and gets stressed about it, which adversely affects her family. It becomes a typical male\female conversation: Helen: I need to grade papers. Me: Ok, grade papers. Helen: But I don't want to. Me: Ok, don't. We have many of these types of conversations where it seems simple to me as there are only 2 choices - yes\no, do\don't, etc.

On Saturday night, Derek asked to hear the song "The Weight" by The Band. He also often requests to hear "Up On Cripple Creek". That led me to put in "The Last Waltz" DVD that Helen bought me for our anniversary last year. We had rented the movie last year and were blown away by it. The kids really loved it also. My intention when I put the movie in was to just watch a couple songs, but we ended up watching the whole thing and keeping the kids up late. They were into it the whole time.

On Sunday, Helen's parents came over for brunch and then took the kids home with them for the night since the kids were off from school on Monday, but Helen had a teacher work day. We talked about having a date night, but I felt like I was coming down with something and slept for a long time. Helen caught up on some papers and then we watched some movies we had recorded. One was "War Of The Worlds". Helen kept watching it, but she was not happy. Anything that makes her think that the future for her kids is not bright upsets her. She claimed she had bad sleep that night and blamed me.

Last night, I finished reading "The Camel Club" by David Baldacci. I've also recently read a couple other books by him, "Simple Genius" and "The Collectors", and enjoyed them all. They're mystery\suspense novels that really grab you - similar to authors like Dan Brown and Harland Coben.

Baseball, etc

It rained Friday night, but the weather cleared by morning and we had a beautiful weekend with temps in the 70's. On Saturday morning, while I took Derek to the skateboard park, Helen and Adam went on a long run\walk. Now that Madison is older, she can't make it for very long so we usually just take her with us for a street or two and take her back home. Lula, however, loves the long walks where she can strut her princess stuff. We're taking her to get spayed today, so she may not be strutting her stuff for a little while.

After the skateboard park, Derek and I met Helen at Adam's baseball practice. Let's just say that Adam's coach is not as organized as he should be. The coach sent out an email after the first practice, introducing himself and welcoming any suggestions. There was the usual couple of parents that thanked the coach for his time, but I of course had a little bit more in mind. Much to Helen's embarrassment, these were my suggestions I replied to all:

My $.02 as far as practice is to make it as fun as possible. The thing I hated most about playing baseball was all the waiting around while everyone hits and the general lack of structure. I think small groups where the kids work on the fundamentals and move fairly quickly between groups works the best. It's also important to focus on technique in every area and not just allow the kids to do whatever they want however they want. If they're not doing it correctly then stop and work with them to enforce that the proper technique is expected. Here are some ideas:

Hitting: head still, rotating hips in a barrel (not lunging forward), pulling the hands through (letting the bat follow), balls\strikes, fair\foul balls, how to hit to all fields, when and why to hit to a particular field

Fielding: grounders, fly pops, hitting the cutoff man, double plays, run downs, base coverage responsibilities, fair\foul balls, positional (catcher, pitcher, 1st base, etc) responsibilites, backing up but not fighting for the ball

Base Running: when you can and can't run (force plays, pop ups, etc), tagging up, stealing, sliding, running through first base and turning right (not overrunning 2nd & 3rd), rounding bases properly (not running too wide) and watching for opportunities to take the extra base, watching the coach\ball, avoiding a hit ball, staying in the base paths

Games: Pickle (there are a number of bases (2 or 3) with a kid fielding each base and other kids trying to "steal" bases), 500 (50 for grounder, 100 for pop ups, etc, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_(outdoor_game)), all kinds of relay type games (throwing to targets, catching pop ups, etc)

Fitness: Baseball is such a sedentary game that you have to make an effort to work on fitness. Push ups, sit ups\leg lifts, running laps\sprints\bases, etc never hurt anyone. Generally teach the kids that fitness is important.

The coach thanked me for my suggestions, but nothing's really changed and only one other parent replied and said simply that organization is good. But I'll keep fighting the good fight.

After Adam's practice, the team had a pre-arranged lunch outing at Dairy Queen. We figured going in that it wouldn't be the team-building exercise that it was purported to be...to crowded, not enough seating, etc...and we were right.

After Dairy Queen, we drove over to the new West Gwinnett Aquatic Center. They were having a grand opening celebration with train rides, inflatables, etc.

After the aquatic center, Helen took Adam home and I took Derek to his baseball practice. Derek's coaches do a great job. I played tennis years ago with coach Shore. They're organized and disciplined, but make it fun for the kids - just the way it should be.

After baseball, we went home and got cleaned up before heading to the Gwinnett Gladiators hockey game vs the first place team in the division, Texas. It was a really well played game, but Gwinnett lost 2-1. We all had a good time and ate lots of junk...dippin dots, big pretzels, pizza, and beer for me. But that's part of the fun...even though my frugal side hates paying the ridiculous prices. They really do a good job making it fun for the whole family.

That was one action packed day. When Derek found out in the morning about all the activities for the day he was ecstatic. He always needs to have something fun to look forward to. Adam seems to be able to just go with the flow.

Skateboard Park

Derek got a skateboard for Christmas and he's really been enjoying it. On Saturday, I surprised him and took him to the Brook Run Skate Park for a group skateboard lesson. He had a blast!

The lesson was $25 for 3 hours - pretty good deal. There were only 2 other kids in the class and one of the kids, who looked about 4, sat out most of the time so Derek got lots of attention. The instructor, David, was a college age kid who was really nice and a great skater. Before the lesson he told us how he and his friends would skateboard all over the area before it was converted to a park.

The parents have to stick around, which wasn't too bad. I wanted to see what it was all about anyway and the other parents were nice and fun to talk with.

Saturdays are going to be busy with baseball and tennis, but Derek really wants to go back and take some more lessons. Adam still hasn't gotten over the fact that he didn't get a skateboard for Christmas...maybe for his birthday and then he'll be ready to go too.

I told Helen that I even saw a middle aged heavy set lady giving it a go. She wasn't great, but she was out there. Helen wasn't biting...sking was pushing it...no way she's going to skateboard.