Burning Questions

Keagan: "Mom, have you heard of Ahammad Dali?"

Me: "Yeah, I've heard of Mohammad Ali."

Evan: "Mom, has a boy ever had a baby?"
Me: "No, it isn't possible."
Evan: "Well, that's a relief! Because I don't want to ever be pregnant."

Keagan: "Mom, when I'm an astronaut and get into space, how will I know when to get back into the space shuttle? I don't want to be the first astronaut that gets left on the moon."

Evan: "Mom, where's the celery?"
Me: "I haven't bought any since we got back from Texas."
Evan: "What's a boy supposed to snack on then?"
He found no celery, but he found green onions. Guess what he decided to try as his afternoon snack? 

The Beast of the Bulls

Here's another sports post. I promise we have a life outside of sporting events, albeit very limited. We are currently in the middle of basketball season. Last year, Keagan decided during registration that he didn't want to play, and when the games began in January and he had to watch his brother play while sitting in the bleachers, he regretted his decision for months. By the time December rolled around again, he was more than ready to hit the court.

Today was the Bulls first game. I had serious doubts that we could pull anything off because we have four adults that all try to coach, and at Thursday's practice, the kids spent 15 minutes running in circles while the coaches debated who would be the best player to jump in the opening tip off. I came close to screaming, "Go with the tall kid," but decided I better not when I remembered all the bleacher coaching I would be doing today. As it turns out, they went with the tall kid anyway. Good choice, Coach 1, Coach 2, Coach 3, and Coach 4. 

Despite the lack of ability to make quick decisions with tall kids and tip offs, it was looking very promising this morning when we had more than five players show up to the game and there was no opposing team in sight. As it turns out, we won by forfeit. Most of us had gotten out of bed really early on a Saturday morning,  though, and we didn't plan to go home so easily. We rounded up some random kids in the gym who agreed to scrimmage us, and we were good for our first game. 

The play of the game was Keagan's game winning basket with 23 seconds left on the clock. While the stands went wild with cheers, I'm pretty sure I pulled a Victor Cruz and did some salsa dancing in the bleachers as my victory dance. Of course neither my dance nor Keagan's shot were captured on video. I was busy bleacher coaching after all, but I did get a couple of not-so-great highlights. Highlights that could only be appreciated by the mom and dad of number 11, or as the other parents now refer to as "The Beast."

Nugget of Advice: Let's Learn the Chest Pass

Evan's basketball season tipped off today with their first game. While Keagan's team has a plethora of coaches, we have struggled to keep a coach. The first coach was around for only one practice, and then he left for Fort Polk. Our second coach was a dad that just got orders for Afghanistan. And now we are onto our third coach. At our first practice with coach #3, he won me over when he had the kids running, and they ran so much, one kid began to cry and call out for his mommy.
I felt what I am sure was an instant connection with the 20 year old private.

While the Nuggets began with a team of eight players, we are now down to five. I can only assume these missing ten year olds were just not interested in playing a sport that required running.

One of the players that is still on the team is ten year old fifth grader that is about 5 feet 2 inches tall. She is a beast, and because no one can ever remember her real name we have begun, coaches included, to refer to her as Big Girl. When I first saw Big Girl, I thought for sure she had been placed on the wrong team. After all, Evan is only in third grade and I just couldn't begin to believe that he was old enough to be placed on a team with a girl who was as tall as most adults and wears a bra. So I asked to see her birth certificate.

Apparently, Evan is old enough to be placed on a team with a girl as tall as most adults and wears a bra.

Big Girl is so tall she doesn't have to jump to make a basket. She can touch the rim, and she does from time to time when she takes a shot. Unfortunately, she still doesn't make a lot of points. Herein lies the biggest disappointment of the season. Evan believed Big Girl was the secret to a winning season. After today's game, he realizes a new strategy is needed. I think our new strategy will include learning the chest pass.

In Evan's mind, though, it was a good game. He did get a three pointer in today's game!

I personally think all five kiddos on the Nuggets are the winners. They played the entire game, running back and forth on the court, keeping up with the opposing team, and not one of them cried and called out for their mama!

He Gets His Moves from Wes

I had these visions of the boys wrapped up in the covers of the bed quietly reading a book with their brand new Kindle Fires. However, the reality is nothing is ever quiet in this house and the boys read only when I strap them into their beds and use threats of "you'll have no football for a week."

I signed Keagan up for track beginning in March. Basketball is in full swing now. Soccer begins next month. I am pushing the sports like never before because this is how the Kindle has been used the majority of the time - when I am not threatening "no football for a week."

This is just one of five videos taken in the past couple of days, and I watch all five of them over and over again because I LOVE them. He is just so darn cute! After I stop chuckling, though, I am reminded that we need to go outside and kick the soccer ball.

Oral Surgery

Just call me Doctor Toole. I just performed oral surgery in my bathroom and removed this thing from my child's mouth.

Is it just me or is that one big tooth??? If I hadn't pulled it out myself, I would have confused it for the tooth of a megalodon. Do you know how many times I told Keagan this week to "man up; it's just a lose tooth." Well, suffice it to say that after seeing this thing, I now know why he was looking forward to a shot of novocain in the mouth, and why it has taken an inordinate amount of time to lose a baby tooth.

Special thanks to the big brother who knocked this tooth loose last week. Our appointment to have it removed is Wednesday. I think I will just cancel that and use the money I would have given the dentist on a pair of Toms wrap boots.

I might also add that I am super pumped to have a kid that doesn't have teeth stacked in front of each other. 

Advantages of Having a Pet

Keagan is now reading chapter books independently, but he needs some encouragement to actually sit down and read. He would much rather be outside moving than sitting inside with a book. So I came up with the idea of Keagan reading to Maybelle.
It's like animal-assisted therapy except instead of a dog, we have a cat, and the patient is not the child but the parent! I don't think I could handle a second go-around in all 46 books of the Magic Tree House series, but Maybelle handles the nightly adventures just fine.

So far it has worked like a charm.

Livin' High in the Highlander

Wes gets promoted, goes to the desert for a year, receives hazardous duty pay, earns separation pay, and works tax free for the year.

I buy a new car.

Fair? I think so.