Pushing the envelope

Pyrope is a laid back kid.  Much like Jet.  He doesn't have motivation to excel.  If he can do it, that is good enough.  He doesn't want to be the best.  If it is hard or he can't do something, that is fine.  He'll do something else.  I wish he would try more to do things that are hard for him.  Or try to do things he can better.  I have to provide the motivation for these things.  I think this plays into his poor attention.

There is one exception for this.  Hockey.  Ice hockey to be exact.  Neither Jet nor I are much into watching sports.  However, I do watch ice hockey when I get a chance (for reasons I don't understand, there is very little televised ice hockey where we live, although it is a large sport for boys around here).  I was watching an ice hockey game during the 2010 Olympics.  Pyrope walked in the room and instantly was in love, obsessive love.  He wanted to know what it was called, then a host of questions.  He wanted to play.  The next weekend, we took him ice skating for the first time.  We told him he could not play ice hockey until he passed a certain level of ice skating lessons.  Thinking that he would give up long before that point.  He has focused and practiced during ice skating lessons like no other activity.  Focus is usually a problem, not at all of skating.  The man who runs the learn to skate program is excellent.  As in he is nationally known for running a very good skating program.  Every time Pyrope sees him, he talks to him about playing hockey and asking if he thinks that Pyrope is ready to move onto hockey.  While the hockey program does its own thing for the most part, they deffer to this man if the children are ready for hockey from an ice skating point of view or if they are better served with learning to skate better first.  (Parents can always "overrule", but from talking to the parents who have elected to do that, it rarely turns out well)  At open skate on Thursday, Pyrope got the green light to try hockey.  Today was the first informational/weed out kids who are not ready session.  Pyrope attended the whole time.  He never got distracted and did his own thing, as many kids were doing, but he listened, waited in line, followed the directions, and gave each drill his all.  There were 47 little kids on the little practice rink (the length of this rink is the width of a standard rink).  It was crowded, and chaotic.  It was interesting watching the wide range of everything.  Kids that did not want to be there but their parents were making them.  Kids that just couldn't pay attention and were skating around doing their own thing.  Kids on the ice who could barely stand.  Kids in full hockey gear.  Kids not even wearing gloves.  Kids wearing bicycle helmets.  Kids without hats.  Pyrope remained focused.  The times he fell was because he was pushing it as far as his ability took him and a little more.  He tried to go around the cones a little faster than he could handle at times (most of the time he remained on his skates).  He tried to stop a little more quickly than normal, most of the time this worked too, but not always.  He aggressively tried to get the tennis balls up off the ice before others could get to them.  Off the ice, he is one of the most passive kids I know.  He never tries to beat another kid to a toy.  If someone else wants something he has, he typically willingly gives it to them.  On the ice, in any related to ice hockey, he becomes the other person.  Aggressive.  Pushing the envelope in his abilities.

I like it.  I wish it was a little bit of a cheaper sport/activity he was so passionate about, but I'm glad to see it.  I'm glad that this is entirely of his own doing.  This is not a passion of Jet or mine, or any other family member or close friend.  This is Pyrope's.  I currently am seeing many many practices and games in my future.

A different culture

After a very long day yesterday, I found myself standing in a Star*ucks this morning at 6:50.  What should have been me being in and out to pick up some coffee wound up with me standing around where you order and get your drinks and food.  I know of Star*ucks, but prior to this morning I don't think I had ever spent more than a couple of minutes in one.

I decided it was a different culture.  Everyone (but me) seemed what to do and the language to speak.  If the line was long, you told your drink order to the lady making drinks.  Most of these orders were 6 to 7 words long it seemed to get one cup of specialized coffee.  They seemed to make things more complicated than needed.  There were not small, medium, and large for size.  But tall, grande, and viente.  Not just cream and sugar.  But skinny, soy, and I think some other things.  The baked goods seemed more straightforward.  I think I could have ordered myself something, if I could eat any of them.  Even if I drank coffee, I don't think I could order a cup of it.  Or maybe I could because I would have some sort of idea of what all of the choices mean.  I typical order water.  I like drinking tea at home.  Even with that, there are a couple of teas I like.  I'm not for all sorts of options.

As I was trying to figure out what the heck people were ordering (to kill the time, and in case I'm ever in need to go to one of these places and order something to be social.  Not a huge Chai Tea fan either.  I did see they had bottle water, and that is probably what I would get), I was listening to the workers talk.  There was the manager who looked to be in her late 20's to early 30's.  A woman being trained who looked to be in her 40's.  And two women in their early 20's.  The two younger women were out working the front several times by themselves during lulls and their conversation was enlightening interesting.  The one is about to turn 25, the other one "has a couple of years" before she turns 25.  The one whose birthday is approaching was talking about how she is having a mid life crisis because she is about to turn 25.  The other talked about fearing turning 25.  They talked about the manager who was "so mature" for her age so when she turned 25 "a while ago" it was not a big deal.  The manager had apparently "gone through some tough things".  This got me thinking about when I turned 25 and what I was doing.  It took some thinking to figure out what I was doing shortly before my 25th birthday and what I did the year I was 25.  My 25th birthday was nothing I pondered too deeply.  I had got engaged 2 weeks prior to it but it was not some major milestone.  I had no idea my world was going to come crashing in on me the day before my 26th birthday.  Essentially from after my honeymoon on, I had seen the writing on the wall that my life was entering a trying and defining time but I had not known what the bottom was going to be.  The day before my 26th birthday I knew what 1/2 of it was, 2 days after my birthday what I anticipated (correctly) to be rock bottom to be was confirmed.  I just didn't know when it was going to happen.  I didn't know that there were going to be 3 other significant deaths prior to in the intervening 10 months.  It was after this thought I started to listen to the ladies talk again.   There "midlife crisis" over turning 25 involved hard classes in school, and dating the same guy for more than a year.  Maybe getting their nose pierced.  I sighed.  How I wish those were my worries the year I was 25.  I then wished that their worries remain their largest worries for the year.  The next time one of them talked to me, she initially called me "Miss" then corrected herself to "Ma'am".  Typically I think of "ma'am" being someone older or military (when I was a commissioned officer's wife, this is how I was routinely addressed), almost something to be offended from being changed from a "miss" to a "ma'am".  Something old fashioned about it.  Then the thought flashed through my head, I guess in their eyes, in there culture where I couldn't even order a drink in a coordinated manner where what would cause a "midlife crisis" for me is so entirely different than theirs, I guess I am of an older generation despite less than a decade of difference in age.

The ironies of life

Last night, I was sitting in my living room.  And I just thought of how ironic the scene and situation was...

Obsidian was dressed up in his Halloween costume, Th*or complete with a hammer that is 1/2 the size of Obsidian.  My son who is/was 3 standard deviations below normal for growth has chosen to be the largest Superhero of them all.  This week I have been dealing with the problems of getting him the Incrlex that he has been on since early August.  He has started to grow since starting.  Problem being it looks like he will have to stop due to insurance and doctor issues.  His appeals have been exhausted.  I have not been impressed with his doctor's office.

I was writing a long email to Pyrope's kindergarten teacher.  Things have not been going well.  It was my second long email to her this week.  The level of communication I've had with the teacher is outside of cultural norms.  I don't want to be a 'problem' parent, but at the same time I feel to give Pyrope the best education, I need to do this.  I do like the teacher.  I like her a lot.  I hope that comes across.  The irony of that situation was I was talking on the phone with my sister.  My sister is a teacher.  She was calling me to ask advice and talk because a parent of one of her students was sending her multiple harassing text messages.  This was to the point my advice was to call the police.  The police's advice was that they are going to step up patrols around her and if it gets any worse for her to leave her city and stay with a relative for the weekend.  So here I am on a Friday night email my son's teacher (hopefully in an useful way) while talking to my sister who is dealing with a parent's communication that is a very negative situation.

So I just shook my head at life, and got the kids to bed.