Athletes

We’ll it was bound to happen eventually…. This spring we have had four kids in four different sports, which has meant sports practices or games up to six days per week in our household. In previous seasons it’s never been more than 2 kids and 2 days a week…. So this was a BIG adjustment!! 

This was a logistical challenge to say the least, and we often had to divide and conquer.  But, we made it work.  And, I'm so proud to say that we made it work without eating fast food even once!  We did have to eat at different times, and figuring out how to get enough nutrition into Lukas has continued to be a challenge :) but everyone seemed to adapt to the new and different routines pretty well.  Everything went better than I expected, to be honest.  Often, in the car on the way to practice or a game there would be at least one kid who wasn’t playing that sport that day who would be grumbling and complaining. But almost invariably, once we got there, everyone’s attitudes changed completely and they had fun self entertaining, making up games and finding new friends. It was a time for creative play with nothing but what you could find and that brought out some cool things, as it usually does, in these ever-growing boys.  

As the seasons have progressed, I’ve been so proud of these little athletes; or in Luke’s case these not so little athletes (he is almost as tall as me!) 

Lukas is such a well-rounded athlete and I really admire this about him. He can do just about any sport pretty well! And his lacrosse skills have developed significantly through this season. His team went 10-2 this season in their division. He’s scored several goals, and learned so much! He also has some really good friends on the team. In addition, our neighbor and coach has helped bring him to and from practice often which has been a huge help.  Lukas was quickly identified as good “Middie” or midfielder, as these are the guys who like to run. They play both offense and defense, running the length of the field many times a game. One thing we've learned and like is that the size of the lacrosse player really doesn't impact his success at all, contrary to football/basketball, which has helped all our confidence.  It’s a full contact sport which was a little nerve racking for me but he did well with it, gaining confidence, focus, sharpness of shooting and aggressive pursuit of the ball when necessary. I’m still learning the rules and may be so for many years to come, but we have quickly learned to love this fast paced team sport which Lukas now completely loves and where Lukas seems to thrive. 

[Let me apologize right now, for all of you who like things to go in a certain order, that this is not a description by age of the child.  I started the blog with certain pictures from certain events and it's really hard to cut and paste, so you'll have to forgive this odd sequence!] 

Jacob put his running skills to the test during the Elizabethtown Healthy Kids Running series. Before it began, he’d been asking me to time him running around the backyard pretty frequently, and this became a newly identified strength/skill for him! My little endurance athlete!  In this series, the kids are assigned to distance according to their age, so in the K-1 group, they ran the 1/4 mile.  Also, there are no practices, just races on 5 consecutive Sundays, which was the good news from a logistics standpoint. The bad news was that Sunday afternoons are also the time for the majority of lacrosse games so this mean we had to split up every week, trading off which parent and brothers watched which event.  Nevertheless, whoever was watching, these boys had many moments to be proud of!! Jacob placed second in 3 of his races, and won one, running about 1:48 each week. During the last race, his nerves got the best of him so he sat out with a bellyache, but thanks to all his other strong runs, he came in 3rd for his age group for the season and got a certificate and a moment on the podium.  It was really inspiring to see him gain confidence over the course of the season. And it was also adorable to watch his brothers cheer him on, this really brought out the sweet side of those tough boys; we loved it!! During his first race, I think Nick ran most of 400yards too, running from place to place jumping and cheering! Jayden and Jacob also took to praying for one another’s upcoming competitions at nightly prayers which just completely melted my heart. 

Jayden can throw!! We’ve been saying that for over a year now, so when he asked to play baseball, we couldn’t say no. Many of his classmates were on his team which he loved, and another neighbor served as coach of this team. It was interesting to watch a bunch of 5-6 year old boys learn to play baseball! It was apparent quickly that the throwing was the easy part. Memorizing bases and positions was a whole different ballgame, for Jayden and all the other kids. We appreciated that he and all his teammates, learned a little more each week and by the end of the season the games were starting to resemble baseball. Jayden can also hit! While they mostly hit off the tee, Jayden can hit a coach pitched ball at least 75% of the time. He also had dramatic improvements in focus and his ability to keep his eye on the ball and field well when the other team was up to bat.  And isn’t this just the cutest posed photo you’ve ever seen!? 

Nick has been doing Ninja at the Urban Playground gym learning to run obstacle courses and parkour this past year. He is naturally talented at this sport, and as I like to say, he has the perfect strength to body weight ratio to be good. He loves jumping, flipping, flying, and doing anything fast. In this sport, impulsivity comes in handy: he doesn’t think, he just flies... from bar to bar (that’s called a lache) or ring to ring, or up the warped wall (he can get up 11’ without a problem!!!!)  It’s been fun to watch his natural skills be highlighted this past year and also watching him grow and develop. 

At the end of the year they had a Minecraft fun run. The whole thing was Minecraft themed and the goal was to defeat the enderdragon and save Sally the sloth. First, Nick ran the ninja obstacle course and although they timed it, they didn’t announce the official winners. Second they ran the parkour course. In my pep talk, I actually told him to go slow so he could be sure and not miss any jumps. But he was in the top four for time anyways! The top four got to run it again while being chased by the enderdragon. Nick sprinted like crazy, and the enderdragon never got his hands on Nick. He was thrilled with himself! Then all four kids got to chase (kill) the enderdragon and save Sally. See the sequence below. Nick was beaming!! It was so fun to watch him shine like this and we pray he continues to use his talents like this! 

We are so proud of all 4 of these incredible little athletes!!! 

Thank you God for all of their unique gifts!