This week: Saturday is for Social

With my car back, it was time for Shane and I's usual Saturday routine. He started off the day with Taekwando.

I sat in the car for most of practice. It was crowded!

There was a brief window in between activities where we popped home for a change and some impromptu basketball.

Carrie posted our VW Bug for sale online. A mechanic who was aware of it's current condition came by and bought it while his kids played with Shane and Raheem. They didn't stay long, but it was a fun side event.

Unfortunately for Raheem, we didn't stay long either. Shane got changed, had a snack, and we were off to basketball.

Shane hammed it up and really enjoyed a dominating win.

Some of my texts to Carrie:
"They're winning 14-2 so Shane is pumped. He cheers every score. It's his turn to go in again and I could hear across the court, "Boo yah, Baby!"

"20-8 at halftime. He's tried a few steals. Was celebrating too much and his man almost ran down unopposed to score but he heard me yell."

The final score was 36-14. The coach's son, Ethan(?), did most of the work. Shane tried a few steals, took a shot from under the backboard, and actually got a rebound. He contributed! How's that for low standards?

Shane tried to make friends with the scoreboard guy when he was on the bench. I bet he was asking to push buttons, too, but I couldn't hear from across the court!

The kids had fun and I was happy with Shane's effort.

We got home to eat and get ready for Sam's birthday party at 3! Rah had a nephew coming to visit at 3, so I felt less bad as we drove off again (He at least had something going on...). 

I recognized a couple of the kids at Sam's party. I could have left him, but I ended up staying and talking with the adults. The other guy who stayed was a computer science professor at UVA. I found the academia discussions and politics interesting. It's a very different world from what I deal with.

There was an awkward moment where a kid showed up who wasn't invited to the party. He'd been visiting his grandparents and wanted to join. Shane immediately started to chat him up. The other kids wanted to play soccer and Shane was happy to find someone who wanted to grab a shovel and dig holes in the yard. Sam has history with the kid and "hasn't taken to him." The kid was allowed to join the party until the kid drama/angst levels were too high and he was sent home.

To my surprise, Shane did not cause the most noise of the kids. In fact, he disappeared at one point. Sam had a new Dogman comic book and Shane sat in his room to read it while the other kids had a light saber duel in the basement. I was amused.

There was cake and a Pokemon themed "Pin-the-Pokeball" activity. Several of the kids had unerring accuracy for being blindfolded and spun. The blindfold may not have worked as intended, but they had fun.

Everyone went outside again after. Shane wanted more cake and to go outside. I told him not to take their silverware into the yard, so he scarfed the cake down on the porch before vaulting down the stairs.

I would have happily stayed at the party longer, but after two hours of mayhem I figured Sam's parents would be happy for some quiet. Shane and I left as soon as other parents started arriving to ease the energy level.

Three planned activities and a little spontaneous play in between. We had a good day!

Trying to Find Friends

If there's one area I feel Shane's life is lacking it's in really close friends.

Shane is a super extrovert. He has a ton of acquaintance-level friends and people he knows through school and activities. He's really good at going up to random kids on playgrounds or places and introducing himself. He's been around a lot of younger kids and does well with them, too.

However, that requires a different set of social skills than nurturing close connections over time. Shane can say, "Look at me! Let's do this!" Then he'll charge off and inevitably someone will follow because it looks like Shane is having so much fun.

Shane has more trouble listening and learning to compromise. He wants to do what he wants to do. Then he wants other people to join him and share in the fun. If Iggy and Sam say they'd rather play soccer, Shane will wander off on his own and hope they join him. He will call over wondering when they're done as they play rather than going with the group decision. One of the reasons I suspect he's good with younger kids is because he can normally direct/talk them into different games or activities he has at least a passing interest in!

My family was large, so I grew up with my siblings wherever I went. I've, also, been blessed with friends I've known for many, many years. The earliest family my family bonded with was the Jeffers when I was three.

I have not found that for Shane. He loves his cousins and knows a lot of my friends, but none of them live in Charlottesville.

I don't regret meeting anyone I'm about to mention, but it's not been the same as my childhood with spending the night at a friend's and spending tons of time and experiences together.

The first candidate were the Lutfis. I really liked both parents, their parenting philosophies, they were our neighbors, and went to our church! I hoped Shane would learn Arabic with Daniel. We moved, and then they moved, though.

Shane spent a lot of time with Bryce the month before we left NOVA, but that was destined to be short-term. We've seen him on some of our trips when we go back north and will continue to do so. I've known Bryce's dad for years and years as a family friend of my parents.

After we came to Cville, Shane met Raheem. We've done a lot with Rah, but he's over 3 years older than Shane and can disappear on weekends. I've talked to two of his step-dads and his mom and trust him around Shane, but the age gap means they're going through different stages. We don't see Rah anymore at the bus stop since he's going to a different school. We've seen him less and less outside with the lower light levels and Rah coming out less, but he's still probably the friend we see the most of. (The day I'm writing this Shane and Rah are outside goofing off while I listen through a few open windows to keep track of them! It really helps I can trust them to not get into too much trouble or stray far!).

Charlie was our other neighborhood friend. She was younger than Shane, but I enjoyed talking to her parents, Matt and Lindzi, a lot. They moved after a year, though. They live in Texas now and have three kids of their own.

We started to get closer with Dylan and Eli for a long while, but that ended abruptly. I want to get the boys together at some point, so that the relationship doesn't stay ended the way it did. Carrie is still iffy on that. There's been tension in their house and a change in living situations that complicate things. That's not my business, so I won't air it other than to say it's affected things. We never made it to sleepovers or the like.

There have been multiple other families I would like to get to know better, but everyone seems to stay in the "nice people but busy" category rather than "close friends" one.

I tried to reach out to Iggy back when they were on the same tee-ball team. Their family stays super busy with both parents teaching in college. Iggy's dad teaches at a Catholic university in DC and is gone all week. His mom teaches at UVA. Iggy started the year in Shane's 2nd grade class, but they pulled Iggy out of J-Via. In an email they said, "J-Via wasn't the best fit for Iggy."

Sam is the friend we've seen the most of. He's come over for a couple of hours at a time, met at a park, or Shane's stayed at his house to play. Sometimes we go two or three weeks in between seeing him outside of school, though. Both his parents work, there are lots of grandparents in the picture due to divorces, and over summer they do a lot of traveling (Sam's dad is from the UK with family over the pond).

I traded contact information with Tae Tae's mom (from the neighborhood, but  moved) and Brett's grandpa, as well (from Pokemon Night, but we haven't been).

Honestly, this makes me stop and think about how blessed I was. I enjoy being around all of my family and I have friends who grew close enough I consider them family. That may be a rarer experience than I realized. I met Jesse Havard and Nate Newell when I moved to Beaumont for 2nd grade.

I'm definitely wired for community-building and I hope to help Shane find and grow with a healthy group of friends. I encourage Carrie to hang out with horse-friends and check in with people I haven't heard her mention in a while, too! Many of my students don't have what I consider a positive family and/or friend network which keeps the topic on my mind.

UVA Soccer Day #2 (Now with Friends!)

We had so much fun last week, we decided to go to a UVA Women's game again this week!

It was a homecoming match. There was free swag and balloons!

Shane was ready to sword fight with friends before we ever found our seats!

We invited Sam to go with us. His family decided to attend as a family trip, though.

Shane and I sat next to the band, because they're loud and he's loud. It was a match made in heaven.

We switched seats when we heard back from Sam's family. They'd sat away from the band due to the noise (Ha!). They had Iggy with them, as well.

Iggy was really into the game. Sam was mostly into the game. Shane was into the cheering, stomping, and "Let's go run on the other side together!"

I hoped to avoid the concession stand this time. I had Shane eat before we left. However, Paul bought Sam and Iggy candy at halftime, so I was sunk.

Candy side note: At first, all the boys wanted sour patch kids. Then, Sam or Iggy said, "Nah! Skittles!" and suddenly all the boys wanted Skittles instead. Shane had already grabbed Sourpatch, so I told him, "Too late!" Shane was bummed at first, but it opened up a world of candy trading later amongst the boys. Sometimes it's great to be the odd one out!

Shane got his wish and we went to the other side of the field for the last 15 minutes of the game. UVA was losing. Their goalie gave up an accidental goal she could have picked up and the other team capitalized on a breakaway earlier, as well. UVA had the ball more often, shot more, corner kicked more, but they couldn't get the shots on goal and past the goalie.

And while Iggy was into the game, Sam came to the wild side.

Iggy's the one in the scarf ignoring all the wrestling and rolling about!

I was perfectly happy to let the kids run and do whatever as long as they didn't do it in front of another family watching on blankets.

Wrestling in the grass? Why not!?

Thunder stick sword fight?

Go for it boys! Even Iggy joined that one for a moment.

Sam's parents were more reserved about horseplay at a sports game, and I got it. They let Sam run around until they felt like it was obnoxious to others and made him take a break. I had Shane sit with me, so that his friend could calm down and listen to his parents before we left.

All in all, it was a great game! Shane wanted to know if Sam and Iggy could play afterward, too. He was okay if Sam's visiting grandparents came as well, and was less keen on understanding the concept of "family time!"

Iggy used to be in Shane's class, but he's not at Jackson Via anymore. I don't know the full story there. It was good to see him at the game.

Hilariously, we broke the groups apart to say, "Farewell," and I stalled a little bit with Shane before heading to the car.

We were parked next to each other! I don't know who parked first, but we met up again a final time!

Shane barely registered that UVA lost. He was pumped up from time with friends in a crowd. That's my little extrovert.

Final Pool Day....with Sam and Toby! And Iggy!

My cell buzzed on the drive home from Grandma's. Sam asked if Shane wanted to play.

Of course, Shane did! We met Sam, Toby, and Kate at Fry's Spring Beach Club at 3:30 PM.

Shane and I have never been. You have to be members and it's too expensive for the amount of driving we seem to do over the summer. It was a nice looking place. There were three separate pools: Baby, wading, and adult (max 7').

Shane and Sam were excited, because Iggy was there!

The boys ran down to the deep end immediately.

I set up shop in some shade and watched them ham it up.

The boys were doing cannonballs and silly walk and jumps with abandon.

They were all super hyper, super noisy, and super entertained. Hallelujah!

Shane did get a small time out for trying to wrestle in the water and half pulling Iggy under. He was overstimulated and not thinking, I guess. It was only for a couple of minutes, but I wanted to get the "Don't try to drag your friends under water and make them yell when you're both in the deep end and not grade A swimmers" lesson taught. It stuck.

Break was blown 10 minutes till the hour. The boys all went to the kiddie pool to kill the time. They were many close moments where they tackled each other and nearly knocked their brains out on the side of the pool. It put Kate and I on edge a few times, but God protected them. It's like the walls were built with kid repellent technology.

Paul, Iggy's dad, came with me to watch the kids all jump in the deep end before they went home for dinner. Then it was the two amigos, Sam and Shane.

Shane shows a predisposition to thinking he can immediately join any social group in progress. There was a young boy (5?) and an older boy (11?) who knew each other. The older boy would tease the young boy and let the younger kid chase him and try to whack him with a kickboard (all standard older sibling type stuff, but they didn't look related). Shane started trying to throw water and say, "Take that!" etc on the older boy out of nowhere. He looked genuinely confused with, "Who is this kid?"

Later, Shane tried to jump in amongst a group of 10-14 year olds all jumping on and wrestling for a floating toy. He saw them playing and swam over without a moment's thought. 

Predictably, he didn't fare well. I heard him telling Sam later, "Those guys are mean!" I sat on the edge of the pool ready to dive in if there was a problem, but I thought the kids do a good job of not manhandling the pup trying to run with the bigger dogs.

Shane tried to splash the kids randomly and scowl them down later until I told him to cut it out. If there was a lesson to be learned, I'm not sure Shane learned it! He and Sam were swimming around grabbing kickboards and having a ball until the next break was called.

The boys reclaimed Sam's inner tube and wrestled for it all break. Then they floated around together some in the wading pool (whenever they weren't capsizing). Toby had the other inner tube. Really, I only saw Tobey and Kate during the breaks. It was divide and conquer!

A horsefly was the last main attraction of the night. I don't know who spotted it, but the boys were out to get it (and inform everyone they could that there was a horsefly and it could bite!).

They tried to splash and cannonball the horsefly out of the sky.

Then they wanted to use their floating toy as a 'trap' for the fly to land on and get splashed.

Needless to say, the fly evaded them easily.

Shane would have stayed another hour, but it was time to head out. Sam had brought Pokemon cards to show and the two geeked out and talked strategy.

They talked all the way to the cars and didn't want to get in the cars to say, "Goodbye!"