wrestling wrap-up

I've found myself in a strange place. I'm the mom of a kid who wins.  In my youth, I recall winning exactly one trophy.  It's wooden with a gold sheep on the top.  I didn't even win it for showing a champion sheep in a sheep show.  I won it for designing an advertisement promoting a breed of sheep for a magazine.

Regardless, I do possess a competitive spirit.  Just try playing boggle with me.  But here I am, this non-champion - and far from athletic - mom, spending a lot of time in the bleachers and on the sidelines of a kid who oozes athletic ability. And what do I say to my kid just before he goes off to crush his opponent? Well, I've come up with some doozies:

"Winning is 20% strength, 20% skill, and 60% wanting it more than the other guy."  (Of course, I know nothing about strength or skill.)  After he got used to me saying this, I would just ask him, "How bad do you want it?" and he would respond, "More than the other guy!"

"Are you here to play games or are you here to win?" I went right down to the mat to tell him this when I caught him playing video games on his teammate's phone between matches.

"Win like a champion, and lose like a champion,"-quickly followed by "...but don't lose."  When it's just one athlete up against another athlete, a loss can really sting - and many kids don't know how to handle that loss publicly.  At the end of the match, wrestlers are expected to come back to the center of the mat and shake their opponent's hand, then go over and shake the opponent's coach's hand.  But often the kid will pitch a fit, throw his headgear down, stomp off, cry, or slap his opponent's hand.  The above little words of advice were followed by a simple threat: "If you ever do that, I will come down there and pin you to the mat."  It would be pretty embarrassing to have your white mom pin you to the mat, so lose like a champion...(but don't lose).

"You're good, but if you want to be great, shovel."  "Shovel" can be replaced with any physically demanding household chore.  The basic message here is natural ability will only get you so far. So work hard.

"Our goal isn't third.  We're setting our eyes on first."  I said this to his coach in front of him at regionals just in case he was thinking about slacking off during his last couple matches. My point was clear that just "making it to state" was not good enough.  (By this point in the tournament, I had seen the other kids wrestle and knew Reggie was capable of winning - or I wouldn't have said it.)

"You can have the cookie, or you can compete at state. You choose."  Let me make it clear that as a general rule, we don't push Reggie cut weight.  But a couple weeks before state, he had to declare a weight bracket - and then the Easter Bunny came.  In the days before the tournament, he needed to lose a pound.  Self-discipline is hard - keep your eye on the prize!

"Your opponent is not staying up late partying." When you're at a hotel with your teammates, it's tempting to expend your energy late into the night around the pool.

"Let's get third and end your season on a win."  When there were four wrestlers left in the championship bracket at state, Reggie met his match and lost.  But the consolation bracket was still wide open. He had ten minutes to be disappointed, then it was time to hit the reset button.

(He did.)

I also uploaded the full uncut matches for Papa and Mike here: part 1 and part 2

Easter

We usually stay home and have grandparents come for Easter. However, this year both sets of grandparents were planning to see us the next weekend at the state wrestling tournament, so it was just the five of us.  Every year, we attend an experiential worship Good Friday service at a local church.  Part of the experience is petting a donkey!

 Here was a first and probably a keeper: Lydia and I made hot cross buns.  Yum!

 Reggie and I made banana cream brownies.  Reggie does more sampling than helping.

Brett made his "famous" fruit salad, but I didn't get a picture of it.  He's too independent in the kitchen!

Lydia really wanted to wear an Easter bonnet this year!

She received the entire series of The Chronicles of Narnia in her Easter bag.  Brett got a Bible and Reggie got Who was Jesus? by Ellen Morgan.

 We got five fresh inches of snow on Easter.  That made the backyard egg hunt extra exciting!

not-so spring break

Winter is holding on tight up here in the frozen tundra, so if you wanted to enjoy spring on spring break, you needed a plane ticket.  We stuck close to home, but enjoyed seeing family and made use of our memberships.

We drove down to Des Moines to see family.  My grandma moved to independent living there after my grandpa died last fall, so this was our first visit to see her in her new place.  We stayed at a hotel with a small waterpark, so my cousin and her kids came over to swim.

Our kids have a lot of fun together because they are about the same age!  After we swam, we went over to my uncle and aunt's house for some pizza.

Wednesday was supposed to be the nicest weather day of the week, so we went to the zoo.  So did everyone else who was on spring break.  It is always fun to go in the spring when there are baby farm animals on exhibit!

 The baby chicks are my favorite.

Bryan had a special birthday on Thursday!

On Friday, we went to the Mill City Museum.  It celebrates the history of the flour industry in Minneapolis.

Brett got to go see the Harlem Globetrotters with his Special Olympics team.

Spring break concluded on Easter - pictures in the next post.

Reggie's regional tournament

Reggie's wrestling season has been pretty intense this year. Practice is two nights a week for 1.5 hours.  There is a tournament nearly every weekend with the first one in December.  Tournaments are optional, but what's the point of doing wrestling if you don't go to the tournaments?  Last year, he participated in most of the tournaments held on Saturdays and we passed on most of the tournaments that were held on Sundays - so we could attend church.  This year, we decided we would attend Saturday night services at our church so he could also participate in the Sunday tournaments.  The tournaments bracket kids based on grade, weight, and, if there are enough participants, experience level. Typically, 1st and 2nd graders wrestle together.  Because Reggie is often one of the older kids in second grade, and above the 90th percentile for weight for his age, he has ended up always being in one of the heaviest weight brackets for his age group.  There are a lot more 50 pound 1st-2nd graders than 78 pound 1st-2nd graders!  This has basically worked to his advantage except that sometimes his wrestling brackets have not been a challenge for him.  We are sure that we learn more from losing than winning, so while Reggie is having fun collecting medals and safety pins (he gets one every time he pins a kid), we would have liked him to be more challenged throughout the season.

At one tournament, I saw a little girl wearing a shirt that said "I have no life because my brother wrestles".  I think these two can relate!

The season culminates at the district, regional, and state levels.  At the district level, everyone is allowed to advance to the regional level unless there are more than 200 wrestlers.  There weren't, so it didn't matter that Reggie got 1st in his bracket. At the regional level, wrestlers must place 1st, 2nd or 3rd to advance to the state tournament.  Last year, Reggie placed 4th (of 6).  This year, we were really hoping Reggie would have to work for a place on the podium and not advance to state by default due to not enough wrestlers in his weight bracket.  Of the heaviest five weight brackets for 1st-2nd grade, his bracket was the only one that had more than 3 wrestlers!  By comparison, some brackets had as many as 15-18 kids.  Reggie's bracket had five wrestlers, and he did have to work for his place on top. 

We are very proud of Reggie!  The state tournament will certainly be an adventure!