Tomorrow is the first HS swim meet of the season!! The next few months will be chaos, but it's my favorite kind. DD1 is looking strong and feeling fast! Fingers crossed for a great season!
Post by librarychica on Nov 20, 2023 18:31:39 GMT -5
We had our first duet practice with DD2’s duet partner tonight. It didn’t go well. Her partner couldn’t get the last 1/3 of the song and teacher decided to cut that. DD2 is discouraged because she’s been practicing a ton and that’s the most challenging part.
Of course her partner is a kid and I’m not going to hold it against her, but her parents? Yeah. Kid has 3 sports — one competitive — and another instrument, has not been able to make lessons recently, etc. Now I know as an extracurricular-light parent I sometimes wonder if we don’t push our kids to learn and try enough but, FFS, at least when we commit, we commit.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Nov 20, 2023 18:49:48 GMT -5
I posted this in the Monday thread but DS did a monologue this weekend and was amazing.
Casting also came out in his school play on Friday. He got what he calls a "small" part. However it's a really funny role that he was enamored with when he first read the play and had said that was what he wanted until he started rethinking the size of the role. I think it's a decent win. I also think, though, that there is a new kid at school this year in his same grade who is big competition for the roles he normally would be cast in and who was cast in one of the larger roles he had said he wanted.
It's always hard to tell if DS understands who his direct competition is or not. I try not to say anything until he does and he hasn't said anything yet.
librarychica- that makes me crazy. One of the biggest things extracurricular activities are supposed to teach kids is the importance of being a good teammate who can be depended upon to keep their commitments. There’s a little girl who used to go to school with DD so still pops up in her social circles. The girl signs up for EVERYTHING and completes NOTHING. She leaves soccer early to go to volleyball, leaves volleyball early to go to dance (and does a bazillion different dance styles/genres), and shows up late to cheerleading because she left dance early but not early enough. Wtf is she learning from this? That she’s more important than anyone else so doesn’t have to practice/rehearse/show up like everyone else does?
librarychica, mommyatty, it also makes me crazy. DD2 does a lot of soccer in the fall, but there were very few conflicts. If she couldn't make practice, it was due to having too much homework that night.
Kids on her team were playing AAU basketball, dance, horseback riding, Gaelic football, lacrosse... As a result, they're carrying an 18 person roster when they need 9 players on the field. And it's totally unpredictable because sometimes the AAU kids all play in the same tourneys, and sometimes they don't (they play for different clubs in different age groups - soccer is done by birth year, basketball by grade). So when everyone shows up to a game, everyone's playing time is reduced. Which sucks.
Part of me is glad that kids can try so many different things.. but maybe not all at once?
This is what drives me insane about DD1's soccer team. There are literally two girls on the roster who I have never met -- not a single practice or game. WHY?! They leave the team short all the time.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
My oldest had his very last football game. He finally got his interception/pick he's been wanting all season. yay but they lost. :-(
It was most heartbreaking though to see the Seniors hugging and crying with each other and literally closing this chapter in their lives.
I'm so proud of the man my son is turning into and I'm so happy he found such good friends. They are not exaggerating when they talk about a brotherhood that forms in football.
I know so many people are against football and I understand it and at times was questioning my decision to allow him to join in HS but I can also see why it's so beloved.
ETA: I also teared up over his instagram post. He's never posted on there before. He gets tagged by others but no posts himself. He put up some photos of him and his teammates and wrote "Thank you football #35out" 😭😭😭😭
cjcouple, I don’t even know your DS and I teared up reading that Insta post.
I know!! these Seniors sign offs are brutal. The girls soccer players did a video on the bus home and passed it around signing out and i was a mess 🤣🤣🤣🤣
DS was assigned a jerk coach that he had 2 years ago. He would put DS in for 2 minutes and pull him for no reason. This is for rec basketball and volunteer coaches. I think he doesn’t know how to rotate players. Then he would leave the same guys in and they would be so tired. DS would literally play for 2 minutes each game.
We are ready to quit and get our money back. No way are we dealing with this again. It’s just a non starter for us. DH reached out to the league and basically said switch it or we are cancelling the registration. It’s heavy handed but been there done that got the t- shirt. Never doing that again.
DD2 came home from a day out with her friend and told me that she found out who her spring soccer coach is. She's played for her 3 times before, and she's awesome! Her DD is also really nice, so we were psyched.
Then she started telling me who else was on the team... and none of it makes sense. This is supposed to be a tiered league with A-B-C teams. They place everyone that tries out, and last year they really just stacked the A team and every other team was based on carpooling, so DD2 ended up on a weird hodge-podge team (as usual, since she doesn't go to school with most of these kids and she's not a top player). The players that she says are on her team with her are all over the place in terms of talent, and in terms of carpool/location.
THEN she said she's really not sure she's on the team with the awesome coach at all, but she's pretty sure she's with her buddy who was placed much higher than DD was last year (rightfully so - she's super fast and has great skills). But she doesn't know.
Soooo... I guess we'll just wait to hear from the coach LOL.
We heard back from the administrator for rec basketball, and he switched our team no problem. We are not "throw a fit" type people or at least not for minor inconveniences like not being on a team with a friend or even for carpooling. But there is zero point to "playing basketball" if the coach doesn't rotate players. One player would play the entire game and be dripping with sweat and exhausted and then DS would have 2 minutes literally of playing time. It usually was the same players but not always so you couldn't even say that it was favorites although there were favorites- it was more like the guy got into the game and forgot to rotate, and then would do the courtesy minute to say hey I rotated you in.
We've had many many many times were DS was not with his friends and we never said anything (Cub Scouts for 5 years, flag football, soccer teams etc.) Some of which you can choose and some you can't. And DD even had an incident where she went to summer camp with everyone and wasn't in the same cabin. We thought it was that DS's friends parents were jerks that pulled strings behind the sidelines, and that may still be true, but we are getting very tired of everyone having things work out for everyone else but not us. And we felt strongly enough to say hey do this or DS isn't playing because it isn't worth the emotional fallout for DS to not play.
waverly that's great that they had no issue with the team switch. We've had generally amazing experiences with volunteer coaches, but a terrible/mean coach can make a kid hate a sport they would love otherwise.
So there is a woman in our area who is a minor celebrity and now spends all her time targeting and bullying people and has an internet and real life following based on that. Much of her content is anti-LGBTQ. It's all about "protecting the kids" and she labels people as groomers and whatnot. This woman has a daughter my daughter's age and causes trouble in the local sports leagues. She is coaching a team in one of the rec leagues. DD's coach is DD's friend's mom who also happens to be a gay woman. A bunch of kids requested DD's coach, no one requested crazy lady, and crazy lady threw a fit about how the league shouldn't honor friend requests. So league makes DD's coach give up some of the players who requested her, but then the parents of those kids freaked out that their kids got assigned to crazy lady's team, so DD's coach had to help those parents get them back on her team. It was a big mess. And would be annoying anyway, but is extra awful for DD's coach when bullying people about their sexual orientation is party of crazy lady's platform. All the parents said they don't care how little playing time their kids get as long as they don't have to play for crazy lady. This weekend DD's team plays crazy lady's team. Should be interesting. The league should just tell crazy lady that she can't coach, but no one will stand up to her because she will drag anyone who gets on her bad side through the mud on social media and the real media (she goes on right-wing talk shows as well).
waverly, I'm glad you said something! DD1 is stuck with her coach for town rec basketball. He's the head of the division, and he and I had an issue several years ago when he took my team, divided it up among the other coaches, and let the other coach choose one "problem" to remove from their team. Then he handed me the "problem" team while everyone else got their previous year's team back. I handed him my whistle and bag of basketballs and told him to pound sand, and I signed DD1 up for another program. And to be clear - it had nothing to do with the ability of the kids on my team. It was literally the kids that no one else wanted to coach, because they were bullies/their parents were bullies/they were disrespectful, etc.
As far as playing time, you should propose to the administrator that they should build in a rule for minimum playing times in each game. In our town rec program, there is an equal playing time rule, and each player MUST sit for a full quarter - not the amount of time that equals a quarter, but a player must sit for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th quarter. I've seen (as both a player in this league and as a spectator) people call out coaches for not following the rules, and the refs step in and enforce it. Most coaches are good about it, a few try to cheat, and a few just forget.
mae0111, the rules say something like equal opportunity playing time, but they don't specify an actual amount. I need to go back and find the rules and read them. But, whatever they are the coach was not following it at all, but the refs don't enforce it. They view that as the coaches responsibility.
waverly - DD1’s coach from this year and 2 years ago was caught breaking the playing time rule in the championship game (the opposing coach that pointed it out has been a full-on cheater since we were kids, so I literally LOL’d when she started screaming during the game… but she wasn’t wrong). In his case, he never sat his 2 stars and had really done well playing everyone else equally. The refs enforced it. He didn’t argue, but he was PISSED because he had to sit them both for the entire 4th quarter.
Ever been to a game where you hoped both coaches lost? That was one 😂
Last year and this year DD was invited to play on 2 different leagues for winter soccer. Same club, just different birth years. Last year, we just played her birth year. I was asked by the coach about this year, and I replied that we will stick with her birth year. It also is slightly more money if we do both, and we only paid for the one league.
She plays goalie and there are a couple of girls that will sometimes play, but it's usually just her. I thought they would have another girl do goalie for the other team, but I was told that "she is welcome to play any of the other year games because if not there is no one in her position". I mean obviously they would assign someone to be goalie, but they aren't as used to the position.
I thought it was a little guilt trippy since I already told the coach, signed up for the one team and paid for the one team, and asked which team I should RSVP for (the coach was vacillating between which one to assign us to). Would you feel that you now have to do both teams or would you stick to your guns? There are schedule concerns because DS also has games and basketball and DD has band, so it's not for no reason at all.
waverly does the league want a firm commitment, or could you just say she’ll come to the other team games when she’s available (with a couple days’ notice)? What does your DD want to do?
My DD plays on the town rec team, but her good friend plays on the club team. Mom of the friend was saying how the club team didn’t have anyone who really wanted to play goalie and the league kept telling them they couldn’t find anyone in that birth year. I told club team mom that we had a girl on our rec team who was born that year and loved playing goalie and went to the league’s optional goalie training and everything, yet had tried out twice for the club team and hadn’t made it. So club mom pressed the league on it and got the girl moved up to the club team. She still came to our rec team games when she was available as extra training. Everyone knew the situation and was happy when she could make it.
If your DD wants to do it, I’d tell the coach that she could play when she doesn’t have a conflict, but you can’t/won’t pay the extra fee. That’s just weird. Dd2’s club has to call kids up all the time and no one pays extra.
The kids had an arts night at school tonight. DD1 showcased her visual art projects - she designed a t-shirt, carved stamps and created a scarf with the stamps, and made a self-portrait on Adobe Illustrator. She loves art so much and has so much talent. I’ve always wanted to be good at that stuff and I’m just… not. It’s awesome to see.
Dd2 was in drama and her class performed a short play. She NAILED IT! Her whole class was awesome! She had one of the leads and she really seemed to enjoy herself. Her BFF from her old school surprised her and came to watch. I loved it!!
mommyatty, thank you! DD2 needed a win after her piano recital debacle, so I was really pleased for her. But they've both seemed to come alive at this school. Another parent put it nicely... I offered DD2 help with something last night (can't remember what), and she said she was all set and ran off. The other parent said, "You're on her turf... this is her space." I knew what they meant - they're totally comfortable in the environment, free to express themselves without fear of reprisal. It's just... easy. It's middle school - there will be bumps... but so far, it's been so great.
There were 3 sets of parents from the old school there last night, and we were all commiserating about how quickly things went downhill. One parent still has one child there and she is strongly considering pulling him out midyear. It sounds like an absolute sh!tshow. So glad it's in the rearview!!
To clarify we would not need to pay to play up. We would only pay extra if we chose to be on both teams full time.
IDK, DH was asking me, and I think I’m just going to stick to my boundaries here. I think it was a light guilt trip but I’m not responsible for the other team- coach needs to figure it out. We will help if they are short. Our schedule doesn’t allow for 2 leagues so we will do the assigned league and if our schedule allows occasionally play up.
Post by librarychica on Dec 4, 2023 9:14:20 GMT -5
DD1, nearly 12, has decided she is trying out for the middle school basketball team after holiday break. For context, though she has played basketball on occasional in PE or at a friend’s, and she is generally athletic with great hand-eye coordination, she has never played it on any team. She has never played on a team at all, in fact, preferring martial arts or other mostly-solo endeavors. She has fought all suggestions that she ever play a team sport until this very moment.
I’ve seen 4 basketball games in my entire life. My dad played in high school in the 1970s. H knows a ton about baseball, which also starts with a B. That’s the background she’s coming from here, lol. I am not sure how much of the rules she knows. She is attempting to teach herself with some help with my dad and YouTube, and some time at a friend’s house that has a hoop. The hoop is not there because the friend plays basketball either, mind you, but because it just was there when they moved in.
For practice, dribble, dribble, dribble. All over the place. Both hands. Cross overs. If she can get 2 basketballs, dribble at the same time. Simultaneous, then opposite hands at the same time. Start slow, then work up to as fast as she can while maintaining control. Doesn't matter how fast she is if she can't control the ball. Tell her to focus on keeping her head up, and not looking at the ball. She needs to see what's happening on the court while she's dribbling.
I hope she has fun with it! It's such a fast-moving fun game!
For practice, dribble, dribble, dribble. All over the place. Both hands. Cross overs. If she can get 2 basketballs, dribble at the same time. Simultaneous, then opposite hands at the same time. Start slow, then work up to as fast as she can while maintaining control. Doesn't matter how fast she is if she can't control the ball. Tell her to focus on keeping her head up, and not looking at the ball. She needs to see what's happening on the court while she's dribbling.
I hope she has fun with it! It's such a fast-moving fun game!
I agree with all of this!! Ball control is important but defense & rebounds are also a good thing to work on and can mke her stand out as a helpful player on a team.