First, Julian's T-ball game, the first in a while since there was no T-ball during the spring break, and then this week's weekday game was rained out. I think the coaches were pretty happy to see the kids again!
Julian rounds out second base.
I alternated between watching and playing catch with Gabriel, which I really enjoyed. I was almost disappointed when the T-ball game was over -- I wasn't ready to leave this idyllic little scene of happy children and sunny fields, having a nice morning playing ball with my boys! (Thank goodness Katrina was at home with Dave, she really saps the fun out of hanging around T-ball, especially since she freaks out at dogs, and there's a dog-training class going on at the same time.)
One kid gets the "spirit award" each week (sort of MVP). Julian hasn't gotten it yet, but the coaches are always dead-on about who earned it. This week's winner (far left) is really not that talented athletically, and tends to be kind of a mess frankly, but he's improved more than any other, and really did well today.
In fact, the MVP and Julian actually made a play together: Julian fielded the ball, threw it to first base, and this kid caught it! That's the first time I've seen a T-baller actually catch a ball in a game!
Right after T-ball, I took Gabriel to a skating lesson. We'd gone last week for the first (free) lesson, when a teacher would evaluate him and determine which level he was. A young woman did a quick check when he first got on the ice, and he wasn't ready, he fell, couldn't skate backward, was thrown off by the chopped-up ice and the crowds, since he was used to his hockey lessons. Still, I was surprised that she put him in "intro," with the brand-new never-skated group. Intro, really? Fortunately the intro teacher figured out within about 5 minutes that he belonged in a different class, and moved him to "pre-alpha."
Still, even in pre-alpha, it looks to me like he outskates most of his class. Today, like last week, when the class skates in circles, he skates circles around it, literally. And falls too.
I try not to helicopter-parent, but it is frustrating how difficult it is to communicate with the teachers, and rely on them to make changes. Gabriel's teacher clearly notices that he's skating differently, and that he's always messing around on his own, and is much much faster than his classmates. But, the teacher has 14 other skaters (all girls!) and doesn't seem inclined to make a change. Next week, I'm just going to take him to the higher-level class, which starts half an hour earlier, and let that teacher say he's not ready if he's not.
This is all figure-skating, which I'd thought wouldn't matter at his level -- he still needs the basics. But now I think it does matter: hockey classes have very very different exercises in how to learn to skate as compared to a figure-skating class. We'll do this series, and he'll get something out of it, but he's already too far gone on hockey skating to go too far down the road of figure skating.
Suddenly I have a new appreciation for what I'd thought were lame hockey classes! I'd thought it was a problem that he was the worst skater in hockey classes, and here I am complaining even more that he's the best skater in a figure-skating class!
Katrina doesn't have any organized activities these days, but she does enjoy walking along our new seat wall, especially wearing darling new girl-clothes that a friend so kindly passed down to us.
4/24/2010
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