People with great passions,
people who accomplish great deeds,
people who possess strong feelings,
even people with great minds and a strong personality,

rarely come out of good little boys and girls.

― Lev S. Vygotsky

This quote is not directly linked to this post, but it’s making me feel a whole hella lot better about the way the month of March has gone for me so far.

Here she is, first thing in the morning, bedhead, face puffed with sleep. She is a pain to wake up so I tend to just lift her out of bed and deposit her unceremoniously at the table.

 

 

And, here she is after noticing I was taking her picture.

 

 

We had our last basketball games on Saturday. This was the first time playing basketball for all three kids; Jake picked it up rather quickly, Maverick quickly decided basketball wasn’t his “thing” but he soldiered on pretty much uncomplainingly, and Cass revisited her dancing days (I texted Jeff to see how one game was going since I was at Maverick’s game; he quickly replied “Up by two. Cass doing South Pacific”).

 

 

Cass took some serious hits this season; a ball or two or five to the face, a full-on collision with a much bigger kid that sent her flying across the court on her belly, a fall onto a ball with her ribcage. She’s also really little and had zero experience shooting the ball (I simply do not know how you are supposed to practice basketball at this age; the basket is 8ft. Higher than the ones you can buy at Toys R Us, lower than at the park). By the end of season she had all the parents, on our team and others, rooting her on, cheering loudly whenever she made a basket. After getting her medal several came over to tell her how much she’d improved this season. One lingered to ask me, “Is she always like this? Does anything ever get her down?”

Well, yeah. She’s sensitive (and frankly, I’d like her to stay that way). She’s easily upset by perceived injustice: Jacob making a mean face, Maverick getting a bigger dessert. I can tell when she’s coming down with something because it’s directly proportional to how much she whines and how quickly her tone of voice gets on my nerves. But on the courts and on the fields, she’s there to have fun. It’s way more important to her than winning. And I love how infectious that is, how her irrepressible joy from movement and being on a team can touch other parents.

 

 

Almost as much as I loved that lady saying how she hates my daughter.

Soccer starts March 31st! Bring it.

 

Postscript: I don’t know why I continue to pretend this is Wordless. I swear they always start out with just very very brief captions. The first one was wordless, does that count for anything?