When I was about nine years old, I fell off the uneven parallel bars and almost broke my gymnastic coach’s arm. I was much taller than the other girls and quite a klutz (which is why Mom put me in gymnastics in the first place). When that incident occurred, my coach screamed at me in front of the other girls, and discouraged my participation from then on. I quit gymnastics soon thereafter.
While Ali (age 13) is much more graceful, she is following in her mommy’s footsteps. Ali was on a basketball team when she was four years old, but quit after the first game because she didn’t like those “sweaty boys” bumping into her (it was co-ed). I was proud of her when she decided to try it again this year.
Well, during basketball practice last week, Ali somehow managed to dislocate her basketball coach’s finger. However, he was much kinder than my old gymnastics coach, and even “set” his finger behind his back so as not to further upset Ali. Apparently it’s something that happens to him a lot, but Ali was still quite distraught.
We attended Ali’s game on Friday night and were speechless by the end of her performance! She’s about a foot taller than the other children, and quite thin and quick, but I had no idea she could move like that down the court, nor that she was so aggressive! She’s certainly not afraid of a little bit of sweat exchange now! We were actually starting to feel sorry for the opponents that Ali was guarding. They couldn’t do anything with the ball!
One father leaned over and said, “Man! You’re daughter’s like a wall out there!” Another turned around and said, “She is incredible!”
We are so proud!! Okay, I’ll get off the Mommy Stage now.
In other news, it’s been dangerously cold here. Wind chills dipped to negative 45 several days in a row and it’s downright painful to just walk from the house to the car. Cars were broken down all over town and ice on the roads was very dangerous. Salt doesn’t work when it gets that cold! The other day, when I was taking the Christmas bow off the front of the van, the wind was blowing so hard that my eyes started watering. I was staring intently at the knot I was fiddling with and, when I finally blinked, I realized that there was ice on my eyeball! Now, THAT was an eye-opener (har har). I’ve never had that happen before. It went away after I blinked a couple of times, but it was quite startling nonetheless! Another thing I experienced that was really weird for a Texas native is that, when it gets really cold like that, you can actually feel your nose hairs hardening with frost. Yes, after you step outside and inhale a couple of times, they all kind of go “bling!”
I’m sure all your Northerners are laughing. My mom’s been telling everybody she knows about my stiff, frozen nose hairs. Uh…thanks, Mom.
Hugs to everybody!
Angela