Sometimes ya just gotta TRY!

I don't think of myself as a "sporty" person. I did participate in a a few sporting activities growing up but I never really "stuck" with anything. My parents were of the "sure you can try out a new activity" ilk. So we did a lot of short term stuff: 6 weeks of Tennis lessons one summer, a couple sessions of Gymnastics in Elementary, Swim Team for 2 years in Junior High, a few years of Karate in High School. My parents didn't really get the concept of committing to a particular sport or a team and sticking with it when it was tough. In fact, I specifically remember skipping Gymnastics lessons once because I was having too much fun doing cartwheels in the front yard with my friends to bother going to the actual class!

Derek on the other hand, ran track & cross-country through-out Junior High, High School and College. (And you see where that has got him- Training for the Boston Marathon!)

So with our own kids we are in the category of: you signed up for this, you will see it through the end of the season and we can re-evaluate next year. As a result Kaylee is in her 12th year of Dance and Nate is in his 3rd year of Swimming. Of course we have had some moments where they don't want to do "it": go to a practice, or a meet and even times where they are sure they want to quit their activity all together. We've been known to allow an occassional (but very rare) mental health day where we let them have a break for no good reason at all, but mostly we insist that they go to practices and events, even when we as the parents, don't want to.

Last weekend was a good example. Nate had a Swim Meet in Waterford on Saturday morning. The weather had been bad on Friday and he's got several meets coming up. Neither he nor I really wanted to go. Plus it didn't seem like a meet where he would be likely to do well. It's been a rough year for Nate since he's one of the youngest in his age. But Derek reminded us of our committment, and he and Nate went to the meet. I will confess at this point that I did actually bribe Nate to go to the meet. I said I would reward him for doing his best no matter how he placed. He just had to TRY.



Well, Nate rose to the challenge. He got personal best times in 3 of 4 events. He also swam a new event. The 200 IM which is a 50 of each stroke. This is a tough event for 9 year olds. Only 6 boys entered it (compared to 40 boys in some of his other events). The coach said the goal for Nate was to swim it clean, and not get disqualified. Not only did he swim it clean, Nate finished really strong. He ended up 4th, earning a ribbon. So it turned out that the meet we were almost ready to give up on before it even started, ended up being a very good meet for Nate.

Sometimes ya just gotta TRY!