Maddie Wins at Swim Meet and Final Day of Baseball Season

Opening Day

One upside of being the Division Coordinator for Caleb's league and coach of Henry's team is being able to pick the team names. So we are the Red Sox in both leagues.

The Henry Red Sox

Caleb's Red Sox played the Yankees. Red Sox won, but it was more of a friendly (I suppose they all are at this level, but this game especially so since confusion led to not following the real league rules).  Caleb played great. It was fun to see so much improvement from last year. Caleb was one of the weak players last year and one of the strong players this year.

Henry's Red Sox also played the Yankees. In his tee ball league, there are only two teams, so he will play the Yankees 8 times. No outs. Everyone bats. We don't keep score. And it is super fun. Just a lot of cheering for the kids as they battle their own teammates for the ball and score runs.

Should be a great year of Red Sox baseball.

The Untalented Are Too Talented

Basketball season ends this week. On to little league. I am division coordinator for the 7 and 8 year old baseball division, or Minor A as we call it, and Head Coach for Henry's 5 and 6 year old tee ball team.

As division coordinator, I assemble the rosters. With limited knowledge of the kids, I attempted to fairly distribute talent, gender, and parent volunteers, all while making sure everyone on each team was available to practice on the same night. I spent, no exaggeration, 8 hours on this task today after spending 2 hours last night.

My first attempt last night was thwarted when a parent (and one of my coaches--it is my job to recruit volunteers) suggested that one team was unfairly loaded with talent only to then say she didn't mind because she was going to coach in a different division anyway. Back to the drawing board.

So I sorted that out this morning and then discovered that I had put down the wrong days of availability for my new head coach, so none of the players assigned to him would be able to attend practice. Back to the drawing board. Then I received concerns that the team previously identified as too talented did not have enough talent.

In a curious twist, the players identified as too talented were also the players identified as insufficiently talented. Which made the solution simple. I solved both problems by swapping out those two players. Someone will turn out to be right and the other will lose a lot of baseball games.

Super Bowl All Nighter

The Super Bowl starts at 1:30 am Monday morning in Cairo. I discovered last year that this circumstance is an awesome opportunity to impart NFL culture to my children. For better or worse, I am almost as eager to pass on a legacy of enjoying American football as I am to pass on the legacy of my religious faith. Indeed, football is practically a religion. Some might say you could remove "practically" from that sentence. I digress.

Staying up all night, to my kids, is just about the coolest thing they can imagine. So if I let them stay up all night, one time per year, to watch the Super Bowl A) they will watch the Super Bowl, 2) they will think the Super Bowl is awesome, and b) they will think I am awesome. There was a subtle homage to Home Alone right there, for those who care.

We went to a friend's house to watch via their Slingbox so we could enjoy the commercials. We only have Armed Forces Network on which the commercials consist of PSAs reminding soldiers that sexual assault during motor pool is not appropriate, which was news to me.

Caleb was cheering for the Broncos. About two minutes into the second quarter he said, "Did I mention that actually, secretly, I was really cheering for the Seahawks all along?"

I did not take Henry to the party. He slept through the night. This was per Katie's request. So when he awoke to discover the game and party were over, he was mad. I entertained the idea of taking one for the team, for about three seconds, then I realized my great opportunity to enhance my status vis a vis Katie and also teach the importance of always telling the truth no matter what.

"Sorry, buddy. That was mom's idea. I wanted to wake you up, but she said no." Broncos lost. Dad won.

Family Dance Party

I typed "The family dance party is" and then Maddie walked up behind me and auto-completed the sentence with "always a disaster."

I was going to be more positive. I generally enjoy the event. Last night the kids chose teams. Henry was odd child out as Maddie and Caleb paired up and assigned him to mom and dad's team. He was distraught. "But they can't dance!"

"You wanna bet?" Katie and I declared as we started busting our moves. The children looked on, incredulous. Finally, Henry said, "It looks like you're hurting yourself."

New Years in Luxor Photos

First of all, vacationing in Luxor was awesome. Please go! They need it. The resort was fantastic but it was sad to hear them talk about how they are usually sold out for New Year's Eve months in advance. Meanwhile, occupancy this last week was about ten percent. So I feel like I need to cheer lead for Luxor. Totally safe. Fresh air (as opposed to Cairo). Loved it.

Henry on the bank of the Nile

Queen Hatshepsut's temple

Tour guide gives us the scoop

Katie demonstrating her mad cap improv dance skills in front of Luxor temple

Taking advantage of resort sidewalks (a feature notoriously absent in Cairo)

Making alabaster items

Collosi of Memnon

Caleb welcomes you to Karnak Temple

Maddie inside Karnak Temple

Am I Bragging? Yes. Yes I Am.

Today was Cairo's annual Youth Death-by-Soccer. This is a six-game round robin tournament in which five-year olds who have been playing games for weeks with few onlookers and no score keeping suddenly have covens of eager mothers screaming at them to "get him!"

Unlike last year (see mid-November 2012 post for more details), I kept quiet, though I was assigned official score keeper and frequently had to correct "well intentioned" parents who were pretty sure their kid scored three goals, not two.*

Anyway, through six games, Henry's team was outscored 15-10, posting a record of 2-3-1. However, during the time Henry was on the field, his team outscored opponents 10-9. Henry scored 8 goals. While on the sideline, he was upset, exclaiming several times, "I'm letting down my team. Can I go back in?"

* They're five years old people. Get a grip.

Saturday Extracurricular Update

Henry Soccer Game: The other team had a ringer, but Henry nearly neutralized him with several excellent defensive plays. Henry scored his side's lone goal with an end-to-end dribble, fighting through several tackle attempts and following his blocked first shot with a rebound strike. The effort fell short in a 3-1 loss.

Maddie/Caleb Tennis Lesson: I observed Caleb swinging with his right hand. So I pointed out to the coach that he is a lefty.

"For me," the coach said, "he is right-handed."

"Okay. I've only lived with him his entire life and you've coached him for five minutes, so you'd be the one to know."

So the coach did what he called "a little test" in which he told Caleb to catch the tennis ball with his right hand. When Caleb was successful, coach said, "See, he is right-handed."

What?

But anyway, I'm not trying to raise the next Roger Federer, so, whatever.

Pinewood Derby: Caleb first place for the Wolf Den and second place overall.