Little Victories

Today was WONDERFUL! I'm so thankful to Amy and Kristin for taking my kids today to give me EXACTLY the day I needed and wanted.....I feel so much more energized now!

So, I am wanting to post this now, because come game time, we might not have as much to report - and it's the little victories we need to recognize whenever they are achieved.

Brayden has been pressing on with football. Now that we've gotten past that initial week of 3+ hours of practice - largely conditioning, it has become much more routine and manageable. Brayden consistently shows up 10 minutes early to the "30 minutes early" option given by the coach to have some "extra time to throw with the coaches". (The reality is, most of the team shows up early, so there really isn't any "extra" attention from the coaches - I guess it proves we have a dedicated team though!) However, there still hasn't been much of a spark from Brayden about it all - and John, who is the one picking up Brayden in the evenings, has really tried to address that - and challenge him to step it up just that much more to prove what he's really capable of.

Last night, while watching the team run at the end of practice, John noticed that Brayden tended to lag a bit behind, but by the time it came to the third (and final) leg of the runs, Brayden was very close to the first kid across the line. John challenged him today to give just "that much more" to see if tonight he could be first on that final leg....... (trust us, we are not "those parents" who ask the world from our kids when it comes to sports, for Brayden, sometimes he just needs a bit of a goal to keep his focus going).

Well, as it turned out, they didn't do the running tonight. Instead they did some scrimmaging. And, what did our boy do, but march right up to the coach (well, probably not march, but walk sounded kind of wimpy!) - and ask if he could play on offense (very uncharacteristic of Brayden, we are super impressed he took the initiative). The coach responded something to the effect "that that was probably not going to happen today, but perhaps tomorrow - but if you want that position, you are going to have to prove yourself and bring it". So, Brayden played defense (as corner....his desired position would be wide receiver) - and what do you know, but that little dude intercepted two passes and swatted another two down. That's our boy!!!

It caught the attention of another one of the defensive coaches, who told John upon picking up Brayden, "your boy has a ton of heart, most of the boys are bigger and stronger than he is, but that doesn't matter to him, he plays with heart".

We'd call that "a victory" - and maybe not such a little one after all.