To say, "We're sorry about all the cancellations," SOCA offered a free practice session at their 'regional training center' for anyone willing to show up. It was half an hour away in Ruckersville, but Shane and I chugged out there.
We went to the U8 session instead of the U10 with the hope that Sam and/or Iggy would be there. Sam was planning on going. I'd traded some texts with his parents beforehand.
Sam's dad mistook the time, though. I thought there'd be more kids, but with Shane there were 15 total. That was enough to break the kids into two mini games.
Shane did well, but he was clearly one of the biggest kids on the field! He normally does well when he's confident about something and having a size advantage helps with being confident!
Shane was focused most of the time! He buddied up with Ezra whom I recognized from baseball last spring. I had to yell for Shane to stand up at one point. He started to crawl on on all fours and said he had "a plan." I don't know if his plan included getting hit in the face, but crawling on soccer fields is not advisable.
The last ten minutes they let the kids pick a game. Shane immediately organized sharks and minnows.
Shane was shouting out rules and in his glory. He had most of the kids listening to him and he was supercharged. One little boy ran off crying, because he wasn't sure what the rules were and they started playing without him. The boy rejoined, but I pointed it out to Shane later. He was so swept up, he never even noticed.
We didn't have a play date, but we got a lot of energy out. We broke up the return trip with a few errands.
I bought light bulbs at Lowe's while Shane checked out the Halloween decorations.
We hit Costco next for gas, pizza, and a light grocery run.
Best news: We finished The Fellowship of the Ring on the way home! We got to watch the end of the movie with Mommy when we got home. It's PG-13, but breaking it up into small chunks and listening to the book to know everything ahead of time made it manageable.
Still, I'm going to hold off on The Two Towers for a while. Probably years. There's more stuff in Shane's age range and I want him reading more on his own.
I was almost the head soccer coach for our opening game. The head coach had a business trip and our first two games were rained out! Coach Meyer dropped off the jerseys and gear by my school at the end of the day.
Several hours later, SOCA cancelled all the games. That's three weeks of games and practices cancelled in a row! I was 3 parts sad and 1 part relieved. At least they cancelled the game ahead of time.
Shane won't build with Legos at home, but he's frequently building with something after school.
I took a picture of his Frank Lloyd Wright's.
Of course, it's more social after school. He's never alone when building and usually offers to give another kid whatever he's building when it's time to go.
Which may partly be an attempt to get out of cleaning, but I think the "look at me" and "appreciate me/what I did" factors in, too!
My second night out for trivia we got 2nd place! There were 14 instead of 23 teams, but it was still cool! There was a section about math, so I had a chance to pull my weight and solve an equation.
John won a bonus round and gave me a Firefly glass. He'd already won one for him and Tom in their previous outings.
John came up with the group name. Here's the write-up from the blog:
"In second place Henchmen’s Union won the fight for better worker compensation as they put frikkin’ laser beams on shark heads."
With all the rain, Shane's been getting a lot of inside time. When he's not poking us, harassing cats, or trying to watch Carrie play World of Warcraft, he'll build a fort.
Carrie came up with playing What Am I?
She said, "No pictures." Of her at least.
Shane's not a big fan of the game. He feels like Mommy is too much better at it! Which I tell him is all the more reason he should learn how to play better!
It stopped raining! Soccer was cancelled and the ground was wet, but it was nice outside for a change!
Shane spent two and a half hours playing in the circle with Henry and Sam.
They collected crickets to try and put them in spider webs.
Sam, Henry's little brother, is way more vocal than I realized. Shane asked him if he wanted to crawl into a hole and Sam refused. Henry said, "Don't go in the hole, Sam," and Sam replied, "I am not going in the hole! I don't want to!"
With the bad weather and traveling this summer, I feel like we haven't really spent any time with Henry and Sam for a while!
Anyway, the kids tried to feed our big spider and put a hole or two in the web instead. Then they went to check out the big spider at Henry's.
She was a large orb weaver! She'd just caught a fly and was wrapping it up while the boys all watched.
It turned in to a nature afternoon for the first hour. The kids went back and forth checking out spiders and bugs.
Then we actually had a sports moment! Shane pitched for Henry.
The twin girls on the other side of the circle were out and watched. Their old enough to walk and interact somewhat now (that's another change on the street!).
I took over pitching duties after a while. Everyone got a chance to bat (including Sam...but that was more like golf).
Carrie came out to see some of the spiders around the block.
I gifted the kett car to Henry and Sam. Shane never uses it. Not much has changed, though, because they're storing it on our porch!
Shane got really interested in a caterpillar and a slug. He made sure to show me, Henry, Nova, and Nova's friend (Riku?).
The boys ended the morning playing under an umbrella before we had to head out for barn chores, errands, and lunch.
Hi, pony!
Shane and I met Iggy and Sam at Pen Park at 2:00 PM.
Iggy was pumped and wanted to play soccer. Shane wanted to climb trees and look at caterpillars. Sam bounced back and forth between.
Here, Shane learned that if he does something dangerous, all the other kids will stop whatever they are doing and give him attention. It's not a lesson I'm sure I wanted him to learn, but there ya go.
A pair of twins, Juliet and Celine(?), joined the group after Shane spotted a woolly bear caterpillar. It turned out all the kids were 2nd graders.
Shane let the caterpillar crawl all over him to squeals and laughs.
Which he promptly wanted to run and show all of the other adults and kids all over the playground.
The twins' nanny was on of the first spectators. It turned out she worked at Covenant and knew the middle school wrestling coach.
Iggy and Sam kept running off from the group to do soccer and other things until Iggy had to go home.
The girls left a little later and then Sam and Shane were on their own.
Sam said he was bored after a little bit, but his mom and I encouraged him to figure something out. He came up with 'Walnut Bowling.' It involved rolling a walnut fruit up slides.
Shane came up with his own idea of dancing and performing.
He recruited Sam and Toby and tried to find more players for his ensemble.
Then he marketed. He went up to random adults and told them it was a penny per person to watch the show!
And he had customers! Customers! He came up to me at first and I laughed and said, "Nope! Not paying!" and "Shane, I don't think anyone's going to give you a penny to leave their kids and watch a show."
Boy, was I wrong. The kid got two nickels. I was busy laughing when one dad walked by and said, "Whatever keeps em busy! At least he's not doing heroin!"
And now I have more future blackmail for when Shane's older.
We spent a little over 2 and a half hours at the playground. That's over 5 hours outside.
Not that it would bother Shane. He tans. And he'll let you know it.
I'm different in that regard. Thankfully, it was overcast much of the day and Carrie relieved me some in the morning to let my skin rest.
