Barrister's obnoxious thread full of smug parenting stories

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-L3YwU-iQ

I imagine you've already seen this Beeb.

[Barrister]

My younger boy tried hockey.  He was terrible at it, having not skated while still in the crib, but he had a lot of fun.  His highlight was scoring a winning over time goal in the final to win.  Well ok, the coach told him to stand in front of the net (he was the biggest kid); the goalie let a rebound go right at him; and as he spun around to try to shoot the puck he fell, lifting the puck over the goalie.  The kids on his team went wild - it was the only goal he scored that year.

And then he retired his skates. 

Heh.  Nice memory.  How old was he?

Last year while Tim scored some goals early in the season, his offence had kind of dried up in the second half.  But then in the city finals, with the game tied, out of nowhere he dekes around two other kids and scores what winds up being the game-winning goal.  He also managed to get his very first penalty with 1 min left in the game, which led to a 6 on 4, but his team held off and they won.

Of course that was also the last goal he's scored period - nothing at all this year.

[Barrister]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-L3YwU-iQ

I imagine you've already seen this Beeb.

You are correct, but still fun to watch again.

So that kid is 4, but I am the head coach for Josh's team full of 5 year olds.  They're just barely more advanced than that.  In particular Josh still mostly does the 'push with one foot' technique that 4 year old does.

[crazy canuck]

@BB

He was about 8.  Despite the fact the other kids could literally skate circles around him he had a great time.  Having a really good coach and being on the best team helped a lot.

He was a very good baseball player at that age and he wanted to give hockey a go.

[Valmy]

David is fairly one dimensional in 8U baseball this season. I think he is batting about .800, one of the best contact hitters in his league...but he is pretty meh at everything else. All the little jock kids all think he is cool now so he wants to play more sports. Naturally this has my mind going in certain directions but I doubt my wife would want him playing American Football or Hockey...but I am taking him ice skating a few times during Spring Break. You know. For reasons

[Barrister]

@BB

He was about 8.  Despite the fact the other kids could literally skate circles around him he had a great time.  Having a really good coach and being on the best team helped a lot.

He was a very good baseball player at that age and he wanted to give hockey a go.

Yeah being 8 (in Canada) and just starting hockey could be kind of rough.  Surprised he'd be on "the best team" - would have thought he'd be put on a lower tier team so he is with kids closer to his own skill level.

David is fairly one dimensional in 8U baseball this season. I think he is batting about .800, one of the best contact hitters in his league...but he is pretty meh at everything else. All the little jock kids all think he is cool now so he wants to play more sports. Naturally this has my mind going in certain directions but I doubt my wife would want him playing American Football or Hockey...but I am taking him ice skating a few times during Spring Break. You know. For reasons

Now Austin, Texas is not Canada!  Eight is a perfectly fine age to start hockey.  And at that age it shouldn't be even mentioned in the same sentence as football - there's no contact allowed.  The only risk is of losing en edge, falling, and hitting your head (which of course is why they wear a helmet).  One kid on Tim's team did miss a few weeks with a concussion - but he got that slipping and falling in a parking lot.  I haven't seen any kid be injured playing hockey yet.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah being 8 (in Canada) and just starting hockey could be kind of rough.  Surprised he'd be on "the best team" - would have thought he'd be put on a lower tier team so he is with kids closer to his own skill level.

Yeah, we were surprised as well.  But he flew through all the athletic testing and with his size the coaches took a chance his skating would catch up.  It did (in the sense he went from horrible to passable) and if he had stuck with it he would have become a decent skater.  But with baseball and then basketball, taking his time it was really just too late to start.

David is fairly one dimensional in 8U baseball this season. I think he is batting about .800, one of the best contact hitters in his league...but he is pretty meh at everything else. All the little jock kids all think he is cool now so he wants to play more sports. Naturally this has my mind going in certain directions but I doubt my wife would want him playing American Football or Hockey...but I am taking him ice skating a few times during Spring Break. You know. For reasons

Wow, with that kind of hand eye coordination at that age, I don't blame you for thinking about the possibilities.  For what it is worth, keep him away from football - concussions from playing football and rugby are what knocked my son out of taking basketball scholarships - the doctors recommended that he not take the risk of having anymore of them by playing in university.

I kind of wish he had stuck with baseball (he was a natural at that).

[Barrister]

Valmy, I'll just leave this here for future reference:

https://www.austinmetrohockey.org/

[Barrister]

Yeah being 8 (in Canada) and just starting hockey could be kind of rough.  Surprised he'd be on "the best team" - would have thought he'd be put on a lower tier team so he is with kids closer to his own skill level.

Yeah, we were surprised as well.  But he flew through all the athletic testing and with his size the coaches took a chance his skating would catch up.  It did (in the sense he went from horrible to passable) and if he had stuck with it he would have become a decent skater.  But with baseball and then basketball, taking his time it was really just too late to start.

I'm almost pissed off on behalf of your son.  He should have been with kids closer to his skill level so he could develop his skills without having kids skate circles around him.  No wonder he hung up his skates after one year!

[crazy canuck]

Maybe, but he was a good athlete and so the thought of playing at a low level did not appeal to him when he was an all star in baseball and then basketball.

[Barrister]

Okay, so a couple of night ago at bedtime Andrew was cradling the ragged remains of an old receiving blanket he had as a baby (he's 7 in a couple of months) that he was going to sleep with.  I commented that for many years I had the remains of an old baby blanket that I kept in the back of a drawer, and how every once in a while I would take it out just to feel it.  I had it at least into my teens if not early 20s.

Andrew and Joshua (age 5) were horrified that I had lost my favourite blanket.They almost started to cry.  Andrew immediately insisted I could sleep with his tattered blanket tonight.  He was insistent on it.

The next day (yesterday), Joshua give me a card he had drawn when I came home from work.  It said "to daddy", and inside it had a picture of me and Joshua holding hands, with me holding my old blanket that I had lost in the other hand.

[Grey Fox]

Kids.

If I had Ovaries, they would be hurting right now.

[Admiral Yi]

Wicked cute.

[Barrister]

Josh had a police officer come to his kindergarten class yesterday.  The officer gave him a little police badge to wear that said "Official EPS Helper".

At bedtime he told me all about how he was going to wear the badge the next day and come to work with me, because he knows I work with the police.

[derspiess]

David is fairly one dimensional in 8U baseball this season. I think he is batting about .800, one of the best contact hitters in his league...but he is pretty meh at everything else.

Hitting is the toughest aspect of baseball (and IMO one of the toughest things to do in any sport), so if he's got that down then he's in good shape and the fielding/pitching will follow.

So .800, eh?  I guess the UT scouts won't have to travel far