Things I Learn From My Kids
Our community volleyball team had our first tournament on Saturday, and keeping up with my coaching tradition, we lost and lost again. I have been studying some coaching tips at "Yes I Can Sports" to develope a positive coaching mentality, since asking my players if 'they are going to sit on the bench to watch the game or are they going to watch it from the court again' doesn't really seem to light much of a fire under them. I understand that we only had six players, plus first game jitters and blah blah blah. But we did things in the game that we HAVE NEVER DONE IN PRACTICE. So, starting tomorrow, there will be no more Mr. Nice Coach. I refuse to lose to teams that cannot play volleyball again. On Wednesday, I will have an update on how practice went.
This blog is supposed to be a place for me to write about the wonders of parenthood instead of a place to gripe about things that really get under my skin. However, today I just can't resist. At work, we have started conducting meetings to keep track of some very important events. This meeting usually lasts about 1.5 - 2 hours - everyday. This does not include the 3 hours I personally spend preparing for it. It drives me so crazy how stoopid some people can be. The other day we had a long discussion about how certain people would be notified when they would have to do make-up briefings. I made a slide for this very purpose. Someone said, "Well, Amy said she would notify us." All eyes moved to me. I said, "And I am notifying you, right now with this slide." What the hell do you want? An engraved invitation, hand delivered? About two days later, the same slide came up. Someone was all confused about whether or not they had to do a briefing. On the slide, I have all the briefings listed, then if someone needs the briefing, I put their name under the title of the briefing and the date when they should receive it. I thought it was idiot-proof, but obviously not. Thankfully, someone else explained the slide for the group. But it is like this everyday. Yesterday took the cake. Our operations officer cleary explained to the guy running this project that there would be 30 people going through our facility. Of those 30, 10 have just gotten here, and they will have priority. He asked the guy if he understood, and the guy said no. How can you not understand that? What is there to not understand? Who ever said, "There are no such thing as a stupid question" needs to be introduced to this group.
At Mass today, Jamie and I were preparing to go to communion. At our church, there are two lines, one with the priest and one with the eucharistic minister. Our priest blesses the children who are too young for communion. When it was almost time for our row to go up, Jamie leans over to me and said, "I won't get blessed. God is in the other row."
When Emma was about two years old we would send her to look for things that didn't exist. "Emma, get that dilly-bopper from your room." She would toddle to her room, then forget what she was after and stay in there and play for awhile. I've tried to do that with RJ, and it just does not work. He'll just look at me, then lift up his hands and say, "Gaw?" Yes, RJ, your dilly-bopper is gone. No fooling you. He is very hard to distract. I would even go as far as saying he has the determination of a mule. It even led to Rick rearranging the kitchen. RJ is convinced certain things must be microwaved. Hot dogs, for instance, must be microwaved. So must Dad's wallet. I don't know how long it was cooked, but it was done.
Well, it is final. We are no longer BMW owners and it feels so good. I hated that car. I hated it since the day Emma threw up all over the door of it while we were in the drive-thru line at McDonalds. How many people use a Beemer to haul trash? We did. Rick would pack that thing full of trash and say "Don't forget to unload the trash when you get to town." Then I would get in the car to come home from work and be overwhelmed by the smell of trash cooking in the hot trunk all day. "What the heck is that rotten stink" I would think, then remember the trash. I hated how you practically have to climb out of the darn thing like you would climb out of a hole, because it is so small and close to the ground. I hated how the headlights were so dim, you would check 15 times to make sure they were even on. I hated how it took 45 minutes for the heater to blow heat. I hated the lug bolts that hold the tire on, instead of lug nuts. I can't even think of one think I like about that car, except that it was a BMW and some "wanna be" would buy it. Anyway, good luck to the guy that did.
