Step-Dadhood.....
It's been a busy week for a kinda' new Step-Dad. Full of baseball, track and history fair projects. Not complaining here.....really love doing it, but they seemed all to come at once. In fact they did.
Baseball: Jack is an above average little league player and gets his chance to show it and improve with a practice every week, and this week four games within 6 days. He goes to the game at about 5:30, we show up for the game by 6:00 and don't get home until 8:00. He pushes through with his homework and sometimes his chore of "pooper scooping" before the game, so by the time we get home it's time for him to shower up and think about bed time.
Track: Jack's school participated in the Christian Schools track meet this last Saturday. A meet of all the private schools in the area. They worked hard and we fit track practice in once a week, wedged into the baseball schedule. The meet was great fun. I'm glad we had a good time [we really did!] because Jack had to report to Ratliff Stadium in Odessa at Zero Early Thirty, 7:30, in the morning and we didn't get home, sunburned and tired, till around 6:00 that evening. It was a good time watching the kids run, spending the afternoon with one of my partners who also had a daughter in the meet, and later in the day, betting on the runners with Paul and my Father-in-Law Don. [not real money....this was a Christian track meet]. Jack did well, winning his 50 yd. dash prelims but losing in the finals. I got to have my first "losing is OK" talk with him, and explaining that not all of us have "fast twitch muscles" like the Neboh kids who won everything. Genetics is important. Their mother is from Kenya and was an Olympic medalist in the hurdles.
History Project: The St. Ann's School history fair was this week. Next year we won't wait till the last day to complete the project. I got to have my first "sports is good, but school comes first" talk with Jack about this. Jack chose the Apollo 13 story as his topic and had done some bit of preliminary work, getting his story board planned out and then emailing my brother who is a Deputy Director at NASA for some web based resources. But the actual construction, printing of pictures and some research was left to the Mom and Me. It looks good, Jack is proud of it, and we got to have an entire Sunday afternoon and on into evening bit of family time.
And tonight, well tonight we get to have our first homecooked, sit down actual familly dinner together in weeks. We get to review Jack's school work and rest. We'll need it.....there's a baseball game coming up soon.
Track [Jack at left] and History Project
It's been a busy week for a kinda' new Step-Dad. Full of baseball, track and history fair projects. Not complaining here.....really love doing it, but they seemed all to come at once. In fact they did.
Baseball: Jack is an above average little league player and gets his chance to show it and improve with a practice every week, and this week four games within 6 days. He goes to the game at about 5:30, we show up for the game by 6:00 and don't get home until 8:00. He pushes through with his homework and sometimes his chore of "pooper scooping" before the game, so by the time we get home it's time for him to shower up and think about bed time.
Track: Jack's school participated in the Christian Schools track meet this last Saturday. A meet of all the private schools in the area. They worked hard and we fit track practice in once a week, wedged into the baseball schedule. The meet was great fun. I'm glad we had a good time [we really did!] because Jack had to report to Ratliff Stadium in Odessa at Zero Early Thirty, 7:30, in the morning and we didn't get home, sunburned and tired, till around 6:00 that evening. It was a good time watching the kids run, spending the afternoon with one of my partners who also had a daughter in the meet, and later in the day, betting on the runners with Paul and my Father-in-Law Don. [not real money....this was a Christian track meet]. Jack did well, winning his 50 yd. dash prelims but losing in the finals. I got to have my first "losing is OK" talk with him, and explaining that not all of us have "fast twitch muscles" like the Neboh kids who won everything. Genetics is important. Their mother is from Kenya and was an Olympic medalist in the hurdles.
History Project: The St. Ann's School history fair was this week. Next year we won't wait till the last day to complete the project. I got to have my first "sports is good, but school comes first" talk with Jack about this. Jack chose the Apollo 13 story as his topic and had done some bit of preliminary work, getting his story board planned out and then emailing my brother who is a Deputy Director at NASA for some web based resources. But the actual construction, printing of pictures and some research was left to the Mom and Me. It looks good, Jack is proud of it, and we got to have an entire Sunday afternoon and on into evening bit of family time.
And tonight, well tonight we get to have our first homecooked, sit down actual familly dinner together in weeks. We get to review Jack's school work and rest. We'll need it.....there's a baseball game coming up soon.
