my child

 Friday night Boo spent the night at her grandparents. 

She came home in pain, it was her neck again. 

She is holding her head like this because of the pain.  

At first we thought she had slept wrong but slowly we pieced together

out of the gym gymnastics was the root cause.

She spent our whole family vacation in pain.

4 days later the improvement is negligible,

tomorrow we go to the doctor.

Tomorrow seems like a long time away...

the gym goes out to lunch

After practice we managed to get part of Boo's gymnastics team out to lunch together. 

Of course gymnastics was on TV...

It is nice to see them relax & just be little (& loud!).

when 'by myself' hits a doubt phase, the power of art

My Boo is a very capable child, no one would argue that.  Well, almost no one.  I am finding she is increasingly doubting whether or not she is capable of making good choices.  Not about big things such as cheating or lying but about little things which really shouldn't matter.

Things like "should the hula hoops be placed biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest?" and "should I shower or take a bath?" or "which green crayon should I use for the trees?" I have been answering "It is your choice, doesn't matter to me." and this erupts into big sighs and long drawn out going nowhere comments like, "just tell me cause I don't know what is best."  This behavior is a road sign that it time for her to get messy and make some mistakes; she is ready to take more control. 

Wonderful!!!  This is where Art Journal comes in. 

"I" Page in progress

I feel giving her a free form space to journal her day & studies will start to help her manage those pesky small decisions.  In the end she will be able to see that all those 'hits, runs, and errors' or 'masterpieces & scribbles' add up to something beautiful.

The SMASH Book (totally love these things!!!). 

What can't you teach using them?!?!  We have already held sidebars on the main styles/schools of art, use of color, types of lines, symbolic representation of emotion and movement, thinking outside the box... 

Before we started we spent some time looking at a lot of different styles of art an books. We even drug out the one I made in Jr. High, what a hoot!!! 



The Pool Page

The first few pages we worked together but she is already gaining confidence enough to create on her own and that for us is the whole point :)

NHMU and finding old friends

Look who Boo found, Al!!!!

He was finally relocated to the new NHMU.

We also found this little man and his mom, our good friends from Portland,

back in SLC on a summer vacation.

~Happy~Happy~

what I like about you

A few days ago the house got really quiet so I went looking for my Boo...

I found her in the yard blowing bubbles with items she pulled from the recycling bin. 

The remains of the last of every type of liquid soap near by. 

I like that a child, who on occasion is gently reminded she does not have to fill all of the space in a room with words says she understands then asks if humming is okay, can sit and work in total peace.

I laugh that she is the kind of child parents trust with a lighter...

I love the way she loves her friends.

The way she see the world...

I know we are doing something (very) right. 

We are extremely blessed to have so many great people in our village.

team life, views from the parent bench

what it is and what it isn’t

When I started thinking about this post I thought, well it is just one of those mom moments.  But that is the trouble it isn’t just one of those mom moments, in fact that is the whole point…competitive gymnastics is something operating way outside the normal realm of childhood fun and games.  Okay I’ve said it; perhaps I have even said it before but today is a new dawn of not loving this incredibly cruel sport >sigh< that my child loves. 

But when is enough, enough?  This year (level) is hard on my child.  She is challenged in ways she has never been before.  Comfortably working in the dead middle of the pack for the first time takes the pressure off being the best; for that I am grateful and unless you have had a child standing in her shoes you might think I’m crazy for that, oh well.  Guess what it gets crazier to the point that I found myself thinking in a moment when she is doing something crazy, well if she breaks her arm she can stop doing gymnastic.  Does that make my state of mind any clearer to you?

I have made peace with a lot of issues with this sport.  Having to work hard to gain skills is good for her, even those like her squat-on jump to high-bar which her visual impairment makes even harder.  None of the difficulties out on the mat or the hours of practices bother me…any more.  What is getting to me (again) are parents who take their child to TOSH (arguably the best orthopedic specialty hospital in Utah) to correct a vault run of an 8 yr old, parents who pay for private ballet lessons just to get pretty fingers, and parents who add extra conditioning (& excessive gymnastic privates) to their child’s life.  It makes me want to scream, perhaps even punch somebody.  It’s not okay and get away from my child.

 

What else is killing me is the whole “I pay people to judge my child”.  And that this sport has the potential to end like hitting a brick wall going 85 mph.  It could end in an injury, one day you train your normal 4 hrs surrounded by your friends, your beloved coaches, your life is there, and the next day you can never go back, or you do your last routine at 18 yrs old and that is it nothing else.  Yes, there is diving and ski jumping and the physical fitness you gained but your love, your hours, your sweat and tears, are in the end for nothing.  What I am saying is it is not a sport/love she can do her whole life it ends abruptly and she doesn’t know that.  She cannot even begin to understand it.  It is her whole life, it is all she knows & loves.

I feel like I need to say, don’t worry she doesn’t have any idea I feel this way and I will support her no matter what dream she needs to follow.  And I am not going to scream or punch anyone (today)… and now I need to go, she has gym.