Tenderfoot.

My oldest is now a Boy Scout. In February, he crossed over from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts, and he loves it. He's a very structured, reward-driven kid, and the click, click, click, ding! of Boy Scouts really appeals to him. Once you do these five things, you get this award. Do these ten things, you get this badge. It's goal oriented, organized, and he can't get enough.

On Monday night, he earned his Tenderfoot badge, at his first Boy Scout Court of Honor. It was a high occasion for our family, as my dad was very involved in scouting and my brother is an Eagle Scout. But my eight year old has a baseball game at the same time, so while I was at scouts, my husband was at baseball. I think my dad was surprised that they didn't skip the baseball game so that brother and daddy could see Drew get his Tenderfoot badge. It's a one time thing, baseball games are 12 to a season. But I can't tell them, or show them for that matter, that one boy's thing is more important than the other. Plus, my husband is an assistant coach for the team, he's not just cheering from the stands. He made a commitment to help for the season.

It wasn't this hard for my parents, I think, this balance of supporting their activities, because they had one boy and one girl, with very different interests and schedules. But I think with two kids the same sex and only two years apart, it's a lot harder to make sure they both know that we support them. I feel I have to work hard to make sure the balance is there. Maybe that's just me.

Who knows what will happen with my youngest and scouts. He's not as goal oriented or reward-driven. The phrase "we don't need no stinkin' badges" would apply to him.

But this one. This one is happy as a clam.

She's such a hack.

I had always thought calling someone a hack was a bad thing, until I became a parent in the age of the Internet. But as it turns out, a "hack" has come to mean a way to get what you need, working with what you have. I love that.
You know, my mom and I talk about this parenting thing sometimes. She's a little in awe of the network I have to work out some of the problems we come up against, or to celebrate and share the wins. She didn't have Dr. Google to turn to when someone ran a fever with a weird rash in the middle of the night. She didn't have girlfriends in other cities to which she could reach out and vent in a strange mix of over-sharing and anonymity. She didn't have ParentHacks.

So here's my favorite hack, for your use or amusement. It's very simple.

I keep a large cooler in the back of my minivan, so that I can feed my kids decent, healthy snacks or meals without hitting the drive-thru every single night.

See, I spend a ridiculous amount of time driving my kids from one activity to another. As kids get older, they get more and more activities, exponentially. Even for those of us who think that we are making an effort not to over-program our children, it just happens. I swear, one minute you're all "OMG Sally is such an overachiever helicopter mom with the karate and the cheer and the piano lessons and the basketball - does that kid ever just get to play in the yard?" and the next you're all "Oh gotta go, I have to run drop off the boys at soccer, then swimteam then feed them something and get them to cub scouts by 7 so they can race their Raingutter Regatta boat that we just built last night at 10pm."

Sometimes I have my own activities and meetings to go to. Then it gets really interesting.

Anyway, We do probably hit some kind of fast food drive-thru at least once a week. I try and use it as a rare reward, but some nights it just can't be helped. Calories are important to active kids. You can't drop a kid off at a sports practice and expect him to function for an hour on nothing but a granola bar. Funny enough, volunteer coaches don't really like your child when he's a starving basketcase melting into a pile of goo after only a few laps.

So, I keep a cooler in the car. Then, on the days we leave the house at 4:30pm and don't return until 8, I can have sandwiches, protein packed yogurt smoothies, cold Gatorade or G2, and fresh fruit ready to go.

The great thing is on those days we just hit the drive-thru for the ice cream. Kidding.

My Coaching Surprise

When I first started playing basketball, I was in about the 4^th or 5^th grade and I wasn’t very good.  The teams were co-ed, then, and I spent more time thinking about my freckled, red-headed teammate Mike Fayard than listening to what the coach had to say.  It was, as my father has often said, more of a social event for me.

Several years passed before I showed much promise.  I think I was quick and fairly athletic, so they kept me around.  Eventually things began to sink in.

I’d forgotten this.  I’d forgotten how hard it was to learn this game.  I’ve played for so many years now that these concepts seem obvious.  Cut to the basket.  Come to the ball.  Pick and roll.  ROLL, people, ROLL.

I know, those words don’t mean anything to most of you but trust me, they’re fundamental parts of the game.  If your child ends up on a basketball team, these are things she or he will learn.

In all these years, I have played and practiced and cheered but I haven’t coached until now.  And, man, it is so much harder than I expected.  It’s so hard to teach the kids this basic stuff, this stuff they must learn if they’re going to continue to play the game: to take the baseline, square up to the hoop, keep the ball alive. 

And I love it.  I love almost everything about it.  I love helping them understand, I love watching them hustle, I love watching them watch themselves become players.

I still don’t like losing, but I’ll take a loss with good fundamentals as a positive step forward.  I don’t like that everyone can’t play all of the time.  That’s hard for me.  I’ve been a player and I know how it feels.  I don’t like watching kids get down on themselves when they still have so much time to learn and grow and perfect their skills.

But watching the camaraderie that develops between the boys is something I could do day after day.  Working, working, working with them to teach these concepts—I only wish I had more hours to give them.  Some of these boys may go on to be real ball players and others will likely move on to different interests.  But right now, for this season, I’m giving them everything I have.  And do you know what’s been my biggest surprise?  They’re giving me even more in return.