Wrestling and Tears (oh, and pictures)

I discovered that I hadn't posted pictures since the huge batch we posted after Christmas. (Of course, I didn't take a lot of pictures either.) Sorry about that! Here's a couple of pictures from our January trip to Zion National Park (we love free Park days).

  

Here's Andrew proudly displaying the Super-hero valentines we made. They were a lot more trouble than they looked.

 And that pretty  much brings us up to this week. Like I said, not a lot of pictures.

Some highlights from this week: Monday afternoon we went to the very crowded school district building for the district Reflections awards. Andrew, luckily, was one of the first to go up, after which we beat a hasty retreat (I didn't really want to keep them both entertained as people they knew went up to the front. I was a little worried about appearing rude--until one of the PTA ladies actually told the audience we were welcome to slip out after our child's awards). He won second place for the district, which is pretty good for a Kindergartner. In fact, as he came up, the lady giving the awards glanced at him, did a little double take, and then said, "Wow, some of these kids are little!" In any case, this is the first medal (of sorts) that Andrew has actually earned, rather than just getting for participation.

I don't remember anything from the middle of the week, which either means it was business or usual or it was so bad I've blanked it out.

I kind of wish I could blank out this weekend. At least, the Saturday morning part of it. As we mentioned, Andrew's been going to wrestling practice. Every weekend, there's a tournament somewhere in the south of the State--most of the time, it's too far for us to willingly drive. This week, however, the tournament was at the other high school, and, since Andrew has been begging to go to a tournament, we took him.

I wish someone had warned me beforehand how much of a culture wrestling is here in redneck country. I had no idea how many people would be there! So, crowds. Already we're not off to a great start. Also, Dan had another conflicting assignment on campus, so it was just me and the kids trying to figure out what the heck was going on. We finally figured out where Andrew was supposed to be (Dan brought him in earlier--around 7:30--for weigh-ins). The kids were all matched up according to age and weight--which is technically a good thing. However, since Andrew's big for a kindergartner, that means that he was one of the last kids his age to wrestle--we waited over two hours for his turn. (I hadn't come prepared to entertain Evelyn that long--or Andrew, who was supposed to wait patiently at the side of the mat for his turn.). Andrew kept telling me he just wanted to go home--but since he'd begged to come and we'd spent $10 for the privilege, I told him he could either take his turn or pay his dad back for the entry fee. He chose to wait. (In retrospect, I should have just taken them home).

About half-way through, I took the kids for a potty break. Andrew ran ahead of us and disappeared. While I was looking for him, he popped up in front of me explaining he'd already found and used a bathroom. I sent him back to our seats with instructions to wait for us (Evelyn still needed a bathroom), and when we got back to our seats Andrew was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't in the bleachers and he wasn't down with the other kindergartners. Cue panic. There must have been thousands of people in the school that morning, and the school wasn't exactly small. I left Evelyn with some nice neighbors by our seat and went to find Andrew. I circled the perimeter of the gym with no luck and was seriously starting to panic when I went out into the lobby and found Andrew wandering in circles, crying because he couldn't find us (!). Apparently he'd waited all of thirty seconds and decided we weren't coming back and he needed to look for us. Needless to say, we had a discussion about what exactly you should do when you get separated from your parents. (Hint: it isn't to go looking for them).

Finally, it was Andrew's turn. After weeks of exulting in what a good wrestler he is, Andrew had a bit of a wake-up call. The other kid was about his weight, and taller than he was. And (something I felt acutely), the other kid had his dad right there coaching him, where Andrew had, well, me. The only useful thing I could tell him was: "Andrew, don't cry!"

Because yes, Andrew was crying. Each match had three rounds (unless you got pinned earlier). At the end of the first round, Andrew decided (why, I'm not sure) that he'd lost and went into Andrew's typical loser reaction--he cried. One of his coaches was there, and helped me calm him down, and he went into a second round, still on the verge of tears. (This picture is really blurry b/c they were moving a lot, but I think you can see the look of utter desperation on his face. I didn't take more pictures because they were too demoralizing).

 

 By the time we got to the third round, it took Andrew several minutes to stop hyperventilating and calm down enough to face the other kid. (The poor kid--it was his first time at a meet too and he had to get saddled with the weird boy who wouldn't stop crying). The other kid got a good grip on Andrew's ankle and twisted it up and that sent Andrew off again. He kept crying, "he won't let go of my foot!" (I'm not sure why Andrew was so unprepared for that, but he was). So he spent the rest of the match crying, tears streaming down his face, snot dripping off his nose, and when the match was over, he barely acknowledged the other kid.

I'm not really proud of my reaction. I felt humiliated by Andrew's very public tantrum. All I wanted to do was to get out of there as soon as possible, which we did. By the time we got home I'd calmed down enough to realize that Andrew wasn't trying to embarrass me on purpose, and he'd calmed down enough to talk about things.

Needless to say, we're all agreed on one thing: no more wrestling tournaments this year (although Andrew apparently still wants to go to practice).

And, this kid still needs to learn how to lose. We're doing our best at home--he's resigned to getting beat by his Dad at Mario Kart (most of the time), and he doesn't cry as much when he loses at card games, but it's not perfect yet.

Anyway, just so I don't end on a complete downer, here's a picture of Evelyn in the lovely dress my mom found for her. It's her new favorite dress.