Baseball lesson

I saw this baseball clip of a father and son at a pro baseball game. The father caught a fly ball. He was quite pleased and the crowd cheered his catch. The father hands his son the ball looking pleased at the crowd. His son was holding the ball and then threw it back to the field. The crowd gasped and the father turned in shock. He whispered something to his son and then his son's face fell. I read the comments on the video and most made fun of the kid, but one comment resonated with me. This was the dad's failure. He did not properly prepare the kid, "if we are lucky enough to catch a fly ball we get to keep it!" This was the dad's failure to explain expectations the boy has no idea. 

One of my kids got in a car accident and this story came to my mind. As a parent were expectations and proper teachings taught for this accident to be avoided? Probably not. Oh the pangs of parenting and of growing up....and being videoed at a baseball game.

Year Of Change

Unfortunately, I labeled this the year the "year of change." And changed it has. Holman came home from his mission, Parkin graduated from High School, Olivia graduated from college, Bella and Sam moved to North Carolina, Olivia is moving to Georgia, Benjamin left Raytheon and got a new job at Family Search and I left teaching and got a new job....Some change has been great!! Holman coming home, great! Graduations great! Liv moving far away, boo! Benjamin's new job he loves, great! My new job.....has caused a lot of consternation. 

I left teaching on a high, my class was awesome they had tremendous growth and like any teacher I was anxiously waiting for my well deserved much NEEDED break, BUT I got a UofA job that started the following week. Cleaning out my classroom, getting grades entered and preparing the student memory books.. I was wiped. On top of that responsibility and change I was still the pseudo head cook for Girls Camp, so shopping for that on top of everything was just a lot. Plus the guilt of not being there all week added to this very hard change.

I got the job at the UofA for the sole purpose of helping my boys get tuition reduction. I did not think of how hard the transition would be, I just did it and boy has it been difficult. I am mourning the loss of my classroom, my profession, my summer....The work I do now is very repetitive even more than kindergarten. The students aren't as excited (it's hard to match kindergarten energy). and the work feels less productive and impactful. The hardest part is adapting to all the computer requirements. I had all that stuff down at school and now I have to learn a bunch of new things in a new system. My learning curve is also very steep. I also feel the most unattractive attribute is ingratitude...so I got to do what the wildcats of old did and that is to bear down!!