Corwin had a birthday party yesterday, a sleep over for Jack, Josh, Jake, Levi, and Keith. This meant that Corwin got another cake and more presents. The boys are at an age where we parents don’t interact much with their activies, which consisted primarily of
I did have to help get the computer games running. All of this didn’t tire them out — they were up until 11 when we sent them to bed but they certainly didn’t go to sleep for quite a while.
I would like to note that the first Wii game they played was Barbie Island Adventure which they found greatly amusing. Shouts of “I got 3 island roses!” echoed through the house. It was only with reluctance that we pried them from that for Putt-Putt.
P.S. I should note that during Putt-Putt, Alice got two holes-in-one. Mom thinks Alice might want to look at the LPGA for a career. A singing golfer who breaks in to ballet when she makes a good shot — wouldn’t that be great TV?
Corwin had another soccer game today. This was against sort of the same team as last week, but in the 5th-6th version.
The game started out well, although the opponents were definitely playing better soccer. It wasn’t anything big but they tended to win player enouncters more often and (IMHO) clearly had more hustle, those two things probably being related. Still, Corwin’s team stayed in the game. Corwin had several good kicks — he’s doing much better about not only getting distance but putting the ball in a good position for teammates. However, the offense wasn’t quite as aggressive as it needed to be. They had lots of good kicks in to the pocket with no one to receive it, so the opposing keeper would just pick it up and boot it back downfield. Jack did have one very nice shot that bounced off the bottom of the cross bar — just an inch or two lower and it would have been unstoppable.
Part way through the second quarter the opponents scored on a good kick and the half ended with the score just 0-1.
The third quarter started out about the same but about half way through that the opposing keeper missed an easy stop. It was a long kick from outside in to the pocket with, again, no friendlies to assist and it looked like the keeper would just catch and boot it. But for whatever reason it just slipped through his fingers and in to the goal. This seemed to energy Corwin’s team and demoralize their opponents — Corwin’s definitely took the upper hand and early in the fourth quarter they had a space of 2 or 3 minutes where they kept enormous pressure on the keeper, with attackers deep in the goal box and very successful returns whenever the opponents would boot it out. Eventually the siege was broken but immediately afterward there was another long kick that the keeper missed. I suspect he was just frazzled.
Corwin’s team keep their upper hand on field position for the rest of the game, but with just a minute or two to play the opponents made a break away play and got a score on what I think was rather a weak kick, but since Corwin’s team had scored twice on less than stellar goal keeping, it was hard to complain. That left the game a tie at 2-2 with no further scoring. Interesting, this time (as opposed to two game ago) it seemed a good result, rather than a bad one to the kids
There was a lot of tripping over the ball for some reason. Jack tripped at least three times and the other team lost an excellent chance at a score when the attacker tripped over the ball.
I made Alice cry again the other morning. She had decided that she wanted pictures of Yuna and Riku. She didn’t like my search techniques but eventually I found an image that passed inspection. I decided I would be nice and printed it on the photo printer. This caused Alice to break down in despair because she wanted in on paper. I took care of that and then Alice was unhappy because it wasn’t exactly the same size as the picture she already had. Is there no end to my cruelty?
P.S. Alice did recover and was able to cut the pictures out from their 8½x11 sheets on her own.
We took Corwin out to Best Buy to get some things with his birthday money last Sunday. One of the games he got was The Force Unleashed where he gets to be Darth Vader’s apprentice and have a really cute girlfriend. I leave you to guess which one Corwin is OK with and which he finds unpleasant.
Mom picked up a game too, Guitar Hero World Tour. She didn’t get to play it until Tuesday because Corwin was monopolizing the Wii with his Forceness. Mom started on easy despite my mocking her, and ended up getting her first perfect (on an initial play through of the song). She hasn’t been able to play it since then.
Back in April, I was contacted by a local mom to do a rocket building workshop after school. Officially I am the president of the local rocket club so I tend to get these requests. It was for a local primary school but not Charles’ one. I didn’t get much response from the rest of the club so I volunteered myself. It was for an hour once a week for six weeks. I had to miss one because of a business trip but I made all the other ones.
I asked for the class to be restricted to 8 kids and 3rd grade and above but I was able to persuade them to let Charles come along even though he’s a 2nd grader.
Overall things went OK. The kids were a bit rambunctious and I overestimated their ability to follow directions without direct and continuous supervision. Two things I need to do differently are having wet wipes from day one for glue cleanup, and picking a slight simpler rocket kit. I used Baby Bertha model rocket. It had been a good choice for the Webelos but these kids were a couple of years younger and it showed. I think a Fat Boy or something similar with a slotted body tube.
I brought in some of my models, a couple of them very nice models that I bought at a fire sale from a club member who had to retire from the hobby. Naturally one of the kids snapped a fin, after which I noted that the rocket was older than he was and he might want to be more careful. Despite that it was overall a good experience.
For Charles, I would drive over to his school, pick him up, and then hustle over to the other school to make it in time. Charles seemed indifferent — he didn’t really object much but I am not sure he enjoyed it all that much. His siblings favorite part is that one of the girls recognized Charles from swim lessons over the winter, despite the fact that they had been in different classes so she saw him only in passing. Yet he was such a hunk that she immediately recognized him at the first class. We still tease Charles with “how’s Marlena?” when we want to bug him.
I can’t believe I didn’t write about this back in the day, Mom and I both claim to remember it, but no such post exists … so I wrote this in June 2010. We’re still teasing Charles about “Marlena”.
I made Alice cry this morning.
Alice was looking for her shoes. She looked and looked and Mom was getting antsy about time marching on so I, cruel and evil Father, looked under the couch and found the shoes. Alice was initially too stunned to react, but as soon as she sat down to put on the shoes it was all too much and she burst in to tears. “Daddy looked under the couch before I could!” she wailed to Mom. Mom, in that caring and compassionate way only a mother can achieve, replied “put your shoes on anyway”. Still, it took several minutes for Mom’s soothing to result in a fully shod Alice.
Mom and I try to be home when Corwin gets back from school but we can’t always guarantee that, so we gave him a house key. As expected he would normally forget it or misplace it. So I got him a big shiny aluminum key fob so it would have some heft and be easier to remember and locate. So naturally if he uses it, rather than put it back he drops it on the chair next to the door and leaves it there. As a result if we’re late then he gets to stand at the door while his house key mocks him in plain sight. Works for me.
Mom felt guilty about Corwin’s birthday so she got him a super-chocolate cake
Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, and the square things are chocolate bars
The strawberries have come in. Alice and Charles had their first ones of the summer yesterday.
Mom was working on the plant in the back corner to add some additional back up plants near it. While she was digging she hit a root and put some muscle in to her shovel to break it up. Unfortunately the “root” turned out to be our cable connection. The cable connection that connects us to the InterTubes. Even better, we use Voice over IP phones so she took our non-cell phones as well. Mom had just sent us back to the primitive isolation of the 20th century. One redeeming feature was that she hadn’t brought the neighbors with us as well.
Mom called the cable company but they said they couldn’t get anyone out until Wednesday (I suspect a policy of putting people who cut their own cables as lowest priority). Mom being Mom, she decided that she would patch the cable enough to get us through until the official repair people showed up. She hopped in the car and took off on her mission. Of course, the timing was near pessimal and she had to hit three stores before she found one open with somewhat close to the necessary parts. Unfortunately they turned out to be not quite close enough so we spent the night cut off from civilization.
The next morning Mom was off at 9AM, when the stores opened, for more parts. She got better parts this time, Radio Shack being open. As soon as she returned, even though it was now raining, the splicing began…
After quite a lot of meticulous effort and false starts, and fiddling with volt meters, Mom did in fact succeed in patching our connectivity and that’s why you can read this message. I don’t expect it to last all that long, but it should certainly last at least a week or so, which should be plenty.
In loving memory of our only rapid fire nerf gun. We miss you.
— Epitaph by Charles
Zina and Claire came by to play and ended up hiding the gun from Charles and then suddenly deciding to head home leaving the gun missing. Charles was very sad. But he did eventually find it.
[Alice puts on Mom’s flips]
Alice: Look, I’m Mom!
Dad: Cool. Mom, get me some food!
Alice: [kicks off shoes] I’m not really Mom. [leans on seated Mom] She’s Mom. I’m just a kid.
Corwin had a post-season soccer game today against a 7-8 grade team. Corwin’s team was mostly 6th graders with a few kids in 7th and 8th and a couple of 5th graders. They also traded one of their 6th grader regulars for his sister, who is a grade or two older.
The game started out well. The other team seemed to be better at pushing field position but Corwin’s team had better running attacks, although they were taking their shots from fairly far out and the opposing goalie didn’t have much problem stopping them. The other team was much of a grinding attack and had several very close attempts where really only luck stopped the score, and some other where only a last second heroic effort made the difference.
At half time the game was still scoreless, but a good game with lots of good plays. Corwin helped out with some good returns and one of the last second saves (using his body as a block) but he missed some plays he could have had if he’d just run a bit to get in position. Overall he just seemed not really in the game, even more lethargic than normal. Perhaps his busy schedule had done him in.
Early in the second half there was a corner kick by the opponents that was caught by the goalie, then dropped so that it rolled in to the goal for a score1. That was extremely dispiriting for the goalie and apparently for the rest of the team as they just seemed to lose it. The opponents started dominating field position and ground out a couple more scores from the pressure. Corwin’s team was just getting out played, until about 5 mintues before then end when they managed to rally and put a lot of pressure on the opponent’s goal but sadly did not manage to actually score. Still it was good to see them play hard until the end, even when behind.
Favorite moments —
1 Corwin tells me that the kick actually curved in very nicely so it wasn’t a drop, but a bobble.
Last night and tonight was Alice’s big annual dance recital. It’s been building for the last week or two, with picture days and make up practice and a full up dress rehearsal on Tuesday. I have some not particularly good pictures from the rehearsal because pictures are not permitted during the actual performance.
I had the priviledge of being an usher on Thursday, which meant five hours of standing around. I managed to watch Alice through the small windows in the door. The next night we had the whole family along with Grandma and Grandpa Virgil. Poor Corwin was along as well, even though it was his birthday. Not quite the way he had envisionsed spending it, but Mom said it would be even more pathetic to have him sitting home alone.
It was a nice performance, with a large number of short pieces and one 30 minute mini-ballet.Corwin watched the earlier parts but we let him skip out of the ballet to read. He responsed by trying to fall asleep during the third section. Luckily for him, there was a mixup in our tickets in that the ones for Corwin and me didn’t actually exist. We had to sit off by ourselves so Mom was unable to observes Corwin’s non-observance of the performance. He did watch Alice, though so it wasn’t a total loss.
Alice got her first flowers when we got home. She had seen other dancers get flowers after a performance and demanded some of her own. Mom, being softer than cereal soaked in milk all morning, acquiesced to this demand. Alice is just lucky she has Dad to stand up to her whims.
At the end of the event there is a current call with everyone on stage. The girls enter by act but there are so few boys that they come in as a group separate from which acts they were in. The kids are arrange with the taller ones in back so the front is basically several layers of little girls in short skirts and tights, a veritable forest of little girl legs. It’s quite impressive when they all start stomping their feet as fast as they can.
We were at a scouting picnic last week end or so when Charles had a biological containment failure. I was informed of this by Charles suddenly saying “Oh, great, I would have to wet my pants right now”. Mom was able to run him home and back and so Charles did not miss out on the entire event.
When we had Levi overnight, Charles was sent down to sleep on the fold out couch. He was a bit frantic because he couldn’t find “Nursey”, his stuffed nurse shark. Mom suggested he just sleep with some other members of the Sleepy Time Crew but Charles stated that it was Nursey’s turn. Apparently he has a strict rotation schedule for them.
That’s my Charles.
Alice and Charles were playing Lego™ when Mom and I heard Alice cry out “he kicked me in the nuts!”. We were just a bit surprised at this and inquired as to the reason. It turned out that it was Alice’s Lego™ mini-fig that had suffered the affront. Alice was aware that this could not actually happen to her. We were unable to ascertain the source of the idea for her mini-fig suffering this indignity, although the way Alice giggled about it created some premptive sympathy for the middle school boys she’ll be hanging out with some day.
One Mom project this spring was getting a rain barrel. I am not sure where she actually got it but she was in quite an upbeat mood the day it came home.
There were some instructions on how to set up the barrel, which Mom thought a bit excessive until we realized that the barrel would indeed need to be elevated to provide access to the spigot and a barrel full of water is very heavy. But Mom persevered and eventually the barrel was installed in a semi-obscured location with access to a downspout. With a big roof it doesn’t take much of a rain to fill it and now Mom’s plants have rain water all the time.
Mom also installed another plant at the corner in the back. I have no idea what it is, but it looks very plant-like to me and it means less lawn to mow.
We went out shopping for presents for Corwin’s birthday. Charles used his Big Blue Eyes on Mom to get her to go to a book store and Toys ‘R Us. He wanted to get a book but I unfortunately teased him by saying that he might not get something at Toys ‘R Us as well. He immediately put the book back and would not be persuaded to keep it. Although, Charles was paying for them so perhaps he was actually taking his reduced financials in to account.
Alice got to Mom and made her buy a “dancing companion” doll, which is cloth doll about 3 feet tall. Alice was pondering a name so, being a helpful Dad, I suggested a few. My favorite was “Zarpox, Destroyer of Worlds” but Charles liked “Vextron the Annihilator”. Eventually we settled on “Vextron, Eternal Flame of Burning Torment” although frankly I kind of wanted that for myself. Alice tried to name the doll “Eleena” or sometimes “Rosie” but Charles and I were much louder.
Corwin was schedule for a camping trip this weekend but Friday afternoon the troop decided to skip the camping that night and leave early in the morning. They were scared off by weather predictions of golf-ball sized hail. It turned out there was very little hail, just massive rain, 80 MPH winds, and tornadoes. I thought it would have been exciting but Corwin thought being in a house instead of a tent was a good thing.
On the other hand this change meant that I had to get up at 5 AM the next day so we could depart for the camp site at 6 AM. We also had to keep one of the boys (Levi) at our house for the night because his parents had other committments for the evening.
We are thinking of putting Mom in a retirement home.
On Wednesday, she took Alice to her dance lesson / wart removal appointment, apparently without further incident. But shortly after they arrived back at the house we received a call from the dance studio. I figured it was to be a discussion of the cost of cleaning up Alice fluids from the practice room floor but it was actually that the staff had found Mom’s purse which she had left behind. One screaming, blood dripping child in the middle of a public place shouldn’t make you forget your purse1.
Today Mom had a business meeting up in Chicago and was due back around 5 PM. Around 4 PM or so I get a call from her in which she informs me she had driven off from a rest stop with her purse on top of the car and was going back to look for it. About 10-15 minutes later I get a call from a stranger who had found Mom’s purse. I gave him her cell phone number. I then got a call from Mom who excitedly told me that someone had found her purse. In the end Mom was mosty rescued by the kindness of strangers, as she did find some debris that had spilled from the purse on impact and might have found the purse anyway. Or maybe not.
We’ll just see if she still has her purse at the end of tomorrow.
1 The smarter set wears a vest which is much harder to forget. especially if you load it up with 5-10 pounds of vital necessities.
Alice was at dance practice last night when another little girl scraped her hand and knocked off “Alice’s wart”. Mom first learned of this from Alice’s screams and went rushing in to the room to see Alice with blood pouring out of her hand. By the time they were home, Alice was in fine spirits, laughing about the entire incident, while Mom and I hoped that the dance floor hadn’t been messed up too badly by Alice bodily fluids. Looking at it this morning I think that not just the scab but most or all of the wart itself came off, so perhaps we have finally reduced Alice to her proper extent.
The bleeding happened because Mom had been using some extra-powerful wart dissolver from the doctor, which left a fairly hefty scab. She had also been instructed to use it only over night, and to put duct tape over it to make sure it was covered while Alice slept. Alice wasn’t too happy about this until I found some purple duct tape I had acquired for working on the beating sticks. Then everything was OK.
One of the activites Mom enjoyed on Mother’s Day was spraying her plants with some sort of super stink juice. I tried to hang around outside and talk to her, on the theory that perhaps she would enjoy my company, but the stink was too much. Polynomial, however, thought it was just great. Mom finally sprayed a tennis ball with the stink juice and tossed it — Poly was after it like a dirt on a child. She wouldn’t give it up for other tennis balls or anything else. Chewing on that ball was her world for quite a while and it kept Poly from annoying Mom and trampling plants as she worked. Kind of like catnip, but much stinkier.
Corwin had yet another concert this evening (it feels like he has been having one every week or two lately) which I once again did not attend. Instead I was off with Charles and Alice at the annual daycare picnic. I don’t know how the concert went but things Two and Three had a good time.
I am not quite sure what the point of the picnic is. I spoke with 2 or 3 other parents who had children in Alice’s class, because almost all the parents grouped by class room. The kids enjoyed having access to a lot of snacks / deserts after eating. As soon as they were done with that, they headed off to the playground nearby and I spent the rest of my time watching them. Alice spent her time with Andrew, but she might have some competition. As soon as he arrived on scene he was mobbed by three little girls, including Alice, who all wanted some of that sweet, sweet, Andrew attention. But Alice’s persistence paid off and she mostly monopolized Andrew once they were in the playground. Alice told us at dinner that she was going to marry Andrew. I inquired as to whether Andrew was to be informed of this. Alice was non-committal. I pointed out that if he didn’t know, he was unlikely to show up for the wedding. Alice considered this but was somewhat of the opinion that Andrew should show up regardless of whether he knew.
One nice thing the warmer weather brings is an abatement of kitty snot in my office. POset spent the winter hanging out on all of the warm electronic devices in my office, merrily sneezing away all over them and the window (and puking on the fax machine once). But now that it’s warmer she is hanging out in other parts of the house, enough so that Mom is now noticing the cat emission problem. It’s the cycle of life.
We had a low key Mother’s Day this year. Corwin had helped pick out cards for the kids to give to Mom, which she liked a lot. Mom had signed up Corwin for acolyte duty and herself as an usher so they had a nice time at church. We went out for lunch and a bit of shopping. We looked at guinea pigs (Charles is obsessed with getting a guinea pig or two for a pet, and I think Mom is weakening). We also got Alice some new shoes and sandals. I think Mom bought some shoes for herself as well. And thus passed the day of excitement.
P.S. Yes, she got flowers too.
The Boyen had games at the same time (9AM) today. Mom decided that she was going to Charles’ game, because it was closer so I was tasked with being Corwin’s entourage for his game.
Mom tells me Charles had a good game, despite his team losing 0-6. The other team had a good player and good and large player, the latter basically able to drive in a goal by himself on a regular basis. Charles was able to stop him most of the time Charles was goalie, but otherwise it was near hopeless. Only the requirement for rotating positions saved the team from even more humiliation. Mom said that Charles also did well on offense, as before overall team support was lacking.
Corwin’s game was a bit more interesting. It was very windy, but the wind was across the field, not along it. Corwin’s team started out very well, dominating the field position and scoring goals on a regular basis. The first two were good driving scores. The next two were from far outside. I didn’t get pictures because I didn’t think they were close enough, but one player hooked it from the far left side, just barely dribbling in to the goal on the left. The other was a power kick from about ⅓ of the field straight out from the goal. It went over the heads of the defenders and just to the side of the goalie.
Corwin didn’t get a lot of play and I thought it was going to be a total blow out. But the second half proved to be a bit different. I think the other coach handed out double cappuccinos to his team because they were much more energized in the second half. Corwin’s team, in contrast, seemed to have exhausted itself. Everyone was just slower and the offense was much less aggressive. They had lots of good kicks (including Corwin) that just dropped in to a sea of opponents to be kicked right back. Even their ball handling was off - the opponents out-footed Corwin’s team far more frequently in the second half than in the first. It wasn’t quite enough to fully dominate field position as Corwin’s team had the first half but the advantage was clear.
The team was also down from its normal set of 3 goalies to 1, so for some relief the coach put another child in for goalie, which lead to 3 goals in less than 10 minutes. The standard goalie was put back in, but he was scored on in a play where he was a bit too aggressive about going after the ball, fell, and was unable to get up and back in action before the ball drifted to a stop a few feet from the goal to be popped in by an opponent.
The end result was a 4-4 tie. The last quarter was tense, as first the other team strove to get even, and then the wondering if either team would score one last goal for the victory. Interesting, although both teams scored the same number of goals, the other team ended up much more upbeat about the game. An interesting example of how expectation colors the results.
I was off on a business trip to a technical conference this week, leaving last Monday and getting back late Wednesday. I brought back some freebies from the conference — I can tell I am getting old because now the freebies don’t thrill me, but instead represent time savings because the kids will like them and I don’t have to shop for them. Sadly, Corwin is a bit too old to really appreciate them, but for Charles I brought back three notebooks, two of them leather covered bound blank books with lined paper with “Ernst & Young” embossed on the front. For Alice I got a little book with post-its for pages on one side and little label sized post-its in various colors on the other. She and Charles loved their loot and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
On the other hand, I took the monitor from Charles’ computer for the trip (because it’s a special design for traveling and between trips we let Charles borrow it). Charles was upset when I mentioned this to him but after I got back he didn’t actually bring it up until this evening, so he can’t have missed it too much.
For Mom, I bought some T-shirts for the kids. What do you think?
Mom got a new laptop a while back because her old one would no longer run an operating system from the Dark Empire. The old laptop ended up sitting on her desk until she was recently taken with the idea of letting Corwin have it, because it could still run Linux, and you all know how we have failed in our duty to provide computational resources to the children. Perhaps a laptop might, in some small way, make up for that dearth of computer access. Moreover, Corwin has been needing to use the InterTubes for parts of his homework for a while.
Mom therefore set up the laptop for Corwin, who received it in his normal enthusiasm for parental largess, until he discovered that it could run a few games. That brought a smile to his face. Still, he does sometimes use it for school. It apparently works better for that out on the roof.
Today was the annual Crop Walk we participate in for the church. Alice and Mom skipped out on the early part of the walk because Alice had her ballet recital pictures scheduled for the same time. I was stuck walking with the boys while Mom was able to frantically stuff Alice in her costume, arrange her hair, coo over all the cute little girls in their cute little costumes in Alice’s ballet class, and try to prevent Alice from falling in the outdoor water fixture used as a backdrop for the picture. Oh, cruel fates, why do you do such to me?
Other than that, the walk was mostly uneventful. We had Polynomial with us and she decided she needed to poop about 3 minutes in to the walk. Charles ended up with poop bag duty and carried it around like a little prize for 10 or 20 minutes, but then put it in his backpack.
I didn’t see too much of that because we almost left Charles behind. We I was trying to stay with our group but they are a determined to finish bunch and had forged well ahead while we were waiting for Poly. I thought Charles would get lonely and exert himself to catch up but I was in error. Charles did, however, set a pace that gradually over a long period got him back in our group, just before we hit the first rest stop.
Corwin was supposed to take charge of Poly, but he foisted that off on Mara. I ended up having to walk with Mara because Poly became distressed if she wasn’t able to sniff one of her family every 10 or 20 seconds. Charles and Corwin, being allergic to girl cooties, begged off,
Alice spent most of her time in the stroller, clutching a helium balloon (I snagged on at the start, correctly anticipating that Alice would be insufferable if she saw other children with balloons without having one for herself). At the very end though, when everyone else was tired, she got out of the stroller and bounced around with much energy, just to mock the rest of us. That’s our sweet little girl. She get her leg muscled admired again, although it was just her calves this time. The older girls (Mara and her friends) spent a good time discussing Alice’s best sport choices.
Charles had an early game at 9 AM this morning. The turnout was a little low, with only 6 players showing and no coach (a referee was sent in as a substitute). They borrowed an opponent for the first quarter or so, then switched back to 6 vs. 6.
Charles had a good day, playing goalie for the first half, then offense third quarter and defense in the fourth. He kept the opposition scoreless while goalie, making good use of the box and doing better about staying out a bit from the goal line and moving in response to attacks. He had some excellent punts.
On offense, Charles was all over the field and managed to get the first goal of the game on a strong solo drive. Charles was better about not hanging out with his teammates who had the ball, instead moving away to set up for a pass or secondary attack. The other players were not so good on that, but better than last game and noticeably more willing to get in the other team’s outer goalie box. All of them (even Charles, just not so much) are still missing on the follow up, where they get a good kick downfield and then stand there, admiring their effort instead of following up the ball.
On the other hand, they did better than I have seen in previous games. One of the other kids playing offense actually stayed forward near midfield instead of running back to the goal. Charles did well in running at an angle to cut off attackers, rather than just trailing behind them. So perhaps there’s some hope.
It was an exciting game as even though there was only one score in the first three quarters there were lots of close shots. In the fourth quarter the other team scored and there was actually a load cheer, which is unusual. I was resigning myself to a tie but Charles’ team rallied back and scored just a couple of minutes later, leaving the final score at 2-1. Not only did they triple their season goal total, but they actually won the game. Bizarrely, I would say this team was one of the better ones they’ve played but for whatever reason the team was much more “on” than usual, especially Charles. I know I am biased but I think Charles was the outstanding player of the game.
Corwin, in contrast to Charles, had a rather easy game, winning 3-1. Corwin did OK, with some good clearing and return kicks as a defender. Corwin still has a bit of the metal foot in him and is also doing much better about placing the kicks rather than simply booting downfield. He had a couple of very nice passes that dropped right in front of an attacker. He would do even better if he’d just run a bit more so as to be in position more often. Mom claims, though, that she saw Corwin actually outrun an attacker. Otherwise, he didn’t have much to do.
The team started off a bit slow, letting the other team score very early and not pressing their attacks much. I thought they were going to get crushed. But they warmed up by the second quarter and mostly dominated the field position after that, which is why Corwin didn’t have a lot to do.
Matt and Claire came over for a visit. Mom tried to get them to play outside, but that was ony partially successful. Matt eventually fled for home rather than spend more time in the outdoors, even though it was quite a nice day. Corwin persuaded me to get a paintball gun out and let them do a bit of target shooting but Matt had already left by then. I was able to get Alice to pop off a few rounds, which she liked. She’s not a bad shot either. We could have her blaze a path for a new triathlon — swimming, interpretive dance, and shooting. Although it might be better to have them shoot before the interpretive dance, to insure a more pliable audience.
