Trophies, part two

So, you ask, what did you do about the trophies? Answer: Nothing.
At least outwardly.
I hoped maybe we would have something legitimate come up, and we would miss the event. I hoped that somehow the parents would drop the ball... I told G basically what I wrote here and he told me that I was effing crazy, and that I should just lock up the kids if I want to avoid this sort of thing. He actually looked a little crazy telling me that I was so crazy!
So I did exactly nothing (except keep my mouth shut, which then again... is something HUGE). The season carried on, the boys did quite well playing soccer together. They had a great coach, who is fun and even tempered, and able to let them do their learning and gave them great support. Most of the families came to every game! This surprised me, apparently everyone else was much more okay with this thing every friday at 5 and half the day Sat.

My parents came to some games, G was into it, I made it to none of the early games, and all of the later ones, and the boys were just adorable. They were really invested in playing, and trying out how it feels to have the upper or lower hand. they were much more evenly matched this year, and there were some games where they weren't sure if they won or lost.

I thought more about this too. (side note) why exactly don't we keep score? I think it's so that the focus doesn't become goals, but come on. EVERY young kid you know wants to know whether they are winning and losing. So I think we lost a lot of opportunities to talk about how it feels when you are the one losing, and to model that behavior with that context. There was definitely some of that, but maybe next year that will happen. I don't know when they start keeping score.

The parents in charge of the "trophy" went to the store with their son, and he picked out a star shaped medallion (about an inch and a half)with a picture of soccer balls in the middle. the ribbon also had soccer balls. so it was a little star shaped neck thing. and it was just totally fine by me. All the boys got to have one at the pizza party after the last game, (yes, i even paid the three dollars) and now R wears it sometimes and thinks about his team. Mostly, I think he likes swinging it around his neck.
Two talented dads teamed up and took pictures of the boys kicking the ball at the games, (action shots) and then made them into little player cards, so now the boys have pics of all their friends.
When they got their necklaces, each boy was told something they did well, and then we gave the coach a gift card to REI.

All the parents and siblings came, it was very social and chaotic and it was a very nice time.


The moral of my story to myself is, to shut the ef up, and watch first. If I had made a protest, it would have made the whole thing so much worse. Thank goodness I have you to suffer through my tortured rant.

Would I do medals my own self? I will answer this the way I answer about food, because now I'm getting better about that too. It matters less what we are eating, if we are gathered together with friends or family. The benefit far outweighs the deconstruction of bonds that tie us together when we throw up walls or refuse outright. If I have my choice, well, then I will do what I can to also hold true to my commitment to food that has been raised consciously, and is connected to me in a meaningful way. And that makes a get-together even more enjoyable.

I am guessing there will be many more of these events. R loves playing, and its fun for him to be physical and have a great guide in his coach. He has been surrounded by me, and many females, and looks as though that may continue at his school, so for him to get to be with his coach, and his dad-that's really important.

Next topic? violence at schools of course. My Knight-loving, shield-brandishing boy, in the montessori environment.
This will wait for another day, when I get fired up enough and pull out all of my research about boys and unload here so I can stay quiet at school. Hey. this could really work out, I may save myself and our family a lot of grief!

Maybe I'm finally understanding that teaching "do nothing", isn't that buddhist? or am i making it up?

Illustrated by

technical difficulties.
I can't get a picture from my phone to this screen. I have now loaded it three ways on my computer, and the web, and I can't find it.
sigh.
lame post for today then, huh.
time to check on the laundry

Plus Six!

Visual Aides

benefits of waiting

So, for some of my (five) dear readers, it will seem utterly sensible that I kept the placentas from both boys' births in the freezer. We were waiting to be able to plant them under a tree, hopefully on a new piece of land that we would own. Well, we had lots of hopes over the last years about some goals that we'd like to meet.
We really wanted to expand the house for a second floor, for more information, see various tortured writings earlier on, when it was still in the rotation. We really really wanted a place, some land, to call ours, and to plant a little yurt on. We had several grumpy new years, one particularly memorable after Rowan was born, when I was being my normal list-happy self and asked George what kind of goals he wanted to write on the list. He, in a foul manner i may add, said that he was writing NO LIST because the thing he wanted still hadn't changed!
Well, yes.
So, as you can see, there will be no list again for George, because we didn't get a magic pass to get land. BUT.
A few years ago, our beautiful, old crabapple that took up the back half of the yard got fireblight and died slowly. We denied it a long while, until one of the large limbs fell off while we were in the front yard. (thank goodness)
As my wonderful friend in CT said, maybe good, maybe bad. Well, it opened up the whole back of the yard when George put on his chainsaw pants and went to town, and then tortured his body by using a huge stumpgrinder to take apart the stump. (picture a large circular blade bouncing up and down on burled, hard old wood stump)
We sparred over what would go back there:
me, GARDEN BEDS! CHICKEN COOP!
george, NONONO, COMPOST BIN,PLAY GYM, ROOM FOR SOCCER and GRASS!
somehow, as often happens, we found the middle ground, got a new garden bed, a chicken coop, a compost bin, a new play structure (as the boys call it) room for soccer AND grass! yowza!
and then a couple of shade-less years went past, me demanding fruit trees! and eventually just asking for ANY TREES! A tree for mothers day! a tree for graduation! a tree for my birthday!
And as the year is now winding up, I turned another year older, and the placentas filled out their 5 and 3 year marks in our freezer (well noted on the package) George DUG HOLES!
And then and then, this very day he moved the car seats to the jeep, packed up the boys and came home with two beautiful trees. a pear, and some kind of purple leaf cherry. Neither make fruit for people, but both flower in the spring. !! We don't think we can fight the insane squirrels in the area, even if we actually shoot all the ones we can see. (we don't shoot them, though I wish I did sometimes)
The boys each assigned themselves a tree. Naturally Rowan took the bigger one, the pear, and Milo, the red-leafed cutie. I couldn't believe it was happening, but took the placentas out of their long home at the bottom of the freezer, and let them defrost. George dug and dug and prepared, and measured, and tamped, and dug and mixed soil and dug (in the hot sun). The boys watched from their perch on the play structure. I took lots of pictures. We let the sausages on teh grill cook too long, because now all of a sudden we have more than an hour less of sunshine, and set the root balls in the beautifully constructed holes over the top of their buried placentas, and voila! we have new family members here on the corner. They will keep us good company, and I will try my damndest to get them water so that they can thrive.
The benefit of waiting was that each boy helped cover his placenta (and yes, they know what they are) and then watched as this tree was set over top. it was like a little belly button in reverse! May these trees grow strong, and well, and old.
And our little boys too.

Even grandpas get them

The boys' grandfather goes to tournaments all over, and does trap shooting, and has really gotten into it lately. Last one was hosted in their hometown, so naturally he had to be there.
What did he get for competing? why. A TROPHY of course.

Likeable=agree, unlikeable=disagree?

So I just got the info on R's first soccer game. And I'm all in a tizzy, which I must work out before I have to actually talk to anyone. But a cursory search brought me this very post.

http://www.mommasaid.net/mommablog/2009/08/31/lets-stop-giving-trophies-just-for-showing-up/

I can't do the trophy thing. Why do I always have to be the one who sounds like the asshole? In Spring, r's first season, I felt so lucky to be on one of those teams where the kids go to the games (where they don't keep score) and then they finish going to those games and carry on to the next fun thing. And now, new coach, new plan, 6 dollars for a showing up trophy that represents many things that I don't agree with.
I have read too much Alfie Kohn. I have too much of an idea of intrinsic motivation, I am admittedly inept at any and all team sports, I am a crazy mother who wants trophies to make sense. I have a friend who wrote a damn thesis on motivation for her Masters in Education.
The real problem isn't my views. If you know me at all, you know that I generally wander from the main line, and I negotiate the world in a fairly healthy way. But the thing is, that I also just want to be friendly with pretty much most people I meet, and I also have a pretty deep need to be liked. Even by strangers, but moreso by people I know.
And I don't think I'm the only one who equates "agreeing" and being likeable and then of course "disagreeing" as the very unlikeable way to be.
So now, is there a likeable way of disagreeing? there must be, for someone with way more social finesse than I have. For now I will be quiet and think. I will try my damndest to feel it all out, and then see what happens. I've been working on this. And now, you can see, that you have not been spared my late-night writing--but have been thrown right in the damn middle of it.
Don't even get me started on the furniture in the living room so that I can deal with our new TV.
Even without late-night canning I am still awake at 11. Hrmph.