Good at making Rice Krispie treats, good at making quilts
Really fun to be with
Awesome at building chairs, awesome at electronics
Neat at making the bed
Doesn’t ever lose love
Playing a lot with me
And entertaining at football playing catch
Really good at playing chess
Excellent at knitting
Never mad at us
Talented at turning children into pretzels
Super Awesome grandparents
By: the boy
A note to the less programming savvy readers out there, this one is full of programming jargon and can likely be safely ignored. In fact, unless you’re writing a blog client, you’re likely to find this one pretty uninteresting.
For those who are interested, the rest is after the link with the custom text…
The kids watched one of the newer Scooby Doo variants this morning before school. I deem this particular episode noteworthy because it was chocked full of all the old mystery cartoon characters. Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, Josey and the Pussycats and Captain Caveman all figure into the plot line. There’s also a ghost character that I don’t remember too well, although the voice is familiar.
The gist of the story is there’s a “mystery solver” reunion. At the reunion, all the principal characters are kidnapped leaving only the sidekicks (i.e.- Scooby, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, etc.) to solve the mystery. Since it’s a Scooby Doo cartoon, Scooby takes the lead for solving the mystery. Of course, the unfamiliar ghost sidekick ends up being the baddy. The kids figured it out halfway through.
The cartoon did the old characters right, working in every little quirk and distinct mannerism from the originals, including the trademark “CAPTAIN CAVEMAN!” bellow, Speed Buggy’s sputtering-style speech pattern and Jabberjaw’s “NYUCK NYUCK NYCUK”‘s.
I have to admit it put a smile on my face seeing them all again. Even the Wife had to chuckle at all the familiar faces making a reappearance. We both watched the whole episode with the kids for a change, since there was a little something more in it for the both of us.
When I got to the car this morning, the boy was in the back seat antagonizing the lass by flipping some straps on the back of the passenger seat. Mind you, this had little affect on the seat- he wasn’t jerking on the seat or kicking it or in any way directly affecting the lass. Merely flipping the straps on the back of the seat had the desired affect- annoying his sister.
The Boy 1, The Lass 0
About half-way to school this morning, the lass began reaching up to the boy’s window. The window on that side is broken at the moment- the track on the bottom of the window is broken off so the lifting mechanism doesn’t attach to it; thus, the window was sitting down about 3 inches this morning.
The boy couldn’t stop his sister from reaching up through the window since he couldn’t close the window. As with the boy earlier, the lass wasn’t doing anything directly to her brother. The mere act of reaching up through “his” window was enough to drive the boy crazy. He even yelled at her for “playing” with the window.
The Boy 1, The Lass 1
Upon arriving at school, we were the 4th car in line for drop off, set back a ways from the entrance door. There is no formal drop-off procedure for the mornings. Basically, it’s wherever the parents and kids feel comfortable getting out. Typically, being in the 1st or 2nd position is when kids hop out.
While we sat waiting for the line to move up, the lass decided to hop out of the car. It’s not that far a walk and I have no issue with them getting out that far back.
“Bye Dad!”, she chirped. She cast a couple of quick backwards glances at her brother to see if he was in hot pursuit. He was not.
“I’m not getting out,” he declared.
But then the line continued not to move and his sister was halfway to the door. There was no way that waiting for the line to move would allow him to beat her to the door. I remained silent the whole time. Waiting.
Waiting…
Waiting…
“FINE, WHATEVER!!!”
Finding the circumstances untenable, the boy flung the door open and hopped out. He then half-walked, half-ran in pursuit of his sister. His sister, having checked and seen that he was out of the car, picked up her pace a bit. She had a comfortable lead, but she wasn’t about to rest on her laurels.
At that point, the line start flowing and as I drove past, the boy was closing the distance but was clearly going to be second to the door.
Final score: The Lass 1, The Boy 0
Lesson learned- for any coding much beyond a module or two, make sure you figure out a documentation method and stick to it across all modules. I’ve just spent the past several hours going through my blogtool code and fixing all those mistakes. Tedium doesn’t begin to describe the process. I can’t imagine having needed to do that for a more significant project.
Definitely a case where it pays to get it right the first time.
Periodically, I try to take a look at our home finances to see if there’s something that can be done to find some hidden stash of money. So far, my efforts have been for naught.
One expense I always investigate is our mortgage payment. I’ve always tried to pay ahead on the mortgage to save on future interest payments. So yesterday I got curious about what the best way to pay the curtailment- at the same time as the payment or halfway through the month or some other day of the month? I could have resorted to a web page that calculates amortization tables, but what fun is that?
So I wrote some python code that can be used to generate a repayment table.
Here’s the meat of it:
Months = [31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31]
Month = 0
def setPaymentParameters(payment, rate, day = 0):
monthlyrate = rate / 100.0 / 12
def _calcMonth(principal, curtailment = 0):
def _calcADB(principal, curtailment, day):
global Month, Months
dim = Months[Month]
Month += 1
if Month == 12:
Month = 0
return ((day * (principal + curtailment)) + ((dim - day) * principal))/dim
# _calcMonth code starts here...
adb = _calcADB(principal, curtailment, day)
interest = adb * monthlyrate
return (principal,
adb,
interest,
payment-interest, # principal payment
curtailment,
(payment-interest)+curtailment, # total principal payment
principal-((payment-interest)+curtailment))
return _calcMonth
So the setPaymentParameters function returns a function that will calculate the monthly interest, principal payment and so forth for a single month. The function returned is a closure over the set monthly payment, the interest rate and the day of month a theoretical curtailment payment is made. No curtailment is necessary for the function to work.
In order to determine the effect of curtailments separate from the normal payment, the calculation uses an average daily balance method. For instance, a normal payment is typically made on the 1st of the month and a separate curtailment payment is made on the 15th. The average is calculated by summing the days the principal the post-payment level and adding the sum of the days the principal is at the post-curtailment level. Then divide by the total number of days to get the average daily balance. In the absence of a curtailment, the calculation simplifies to the prinicipal balance at the beginning of the period.
Following is an example of how to use the function:
Rate = float(5.25)
Payment = float(1000.00)
Amortization = []
CalcMonth = setPaymentParameters(Payment, Rate, 15)
Principal = float(150000.00)
while (Principal > 0):
t = CalcMonth(Principal)
Amortization.append(t)
Principal = t[6]
print len(Amortization)
interestTotal = float(0.0)
for i in range(len(Amortization)):
print map(lambda x: format(x, ".2f"), Amortization[i])
interestTotal += Amortization[i][2]
print format(interestTotal, ".2f")
The output won’t be particularly pretty, but it will list the total number of payments made to payoff the loan, followed by a breakdown of the effect of each monthly payment, followed by a calculation of the total interest paid. A monthly payment line will look like this:
['150000.00', '150000.00', '656.25', '343.75', '0.00', '343.75', '149656.25']
From left to right, we have the beginning principal, the average daily balance, the interest for the month, the principal paydown, the principal curtailment, the total principal paydown and finally the principal balance after the payment is applied. Each subsequent month uses this final principal balance number as the beginning balance.
The above snippet doesn’t use a curtailment payment to accelerate the paydown of the mortgage. To do that, the while loop needs to be modified slightly:
Curtailment = float(500.00)
while (Principal > 0):
if len(Amortization) == 0:
temp = CalcMonth(Principal)
t = (temp[0],
temp[1],
temp[2],
temp[3],
Curtailment,
Payment-temp[2]+Curtailment,
Principal-(Payment-temp[2]+Curtailment))
else:
t = CalcMonth(Principal, Curtailment)
Amortization.append(t)
Principal = t[6]
The modification is needed for the first payment. Since it’s the first payment, no curtailment is made, so the interest is calculated on the entire loan amount. The returned payment info needs to be modified then, manually inserting the curtailment payment. Thereafter, all calculations use the curtailment.
Here are the first couple of payment output lines:
['150000.00', '150000.00', '656.25', '343.75', '500.00', '843.75', '149156.25']
['149156.25', '149424.11', '653.73', '346.27', '500.00', '846.27', '148309.98']
The curtailment payment is included and the ending principal balance includes the extra payment. Notice the second line’s average daily balance number, which is higher than the starting principal balance. To fully understand that, first notice that the setPaymentParameters was called with the day set to 15, meaning the curtailment payment is applied on the 15th of the month, not the same day as the normal payment. Therefore, there are 15 days where the principal sits without the curtailment payment applied. Then the payment is applied for the remainder of the month. The end result is the ADB, which is used to calculate interest, is slightly higher than the principal balance after the curtailment.
The final answer to my question about the optimal day to apply the curtailment turned out to be- it saves the most money if the curtailment is paid on the same day as the normal payment. This makes sense since in general, paying earlier means the outstanding principal is reduced quicker, therefore interest is minimized.
But, that’s not the whole picture. Sometimes, for monthly household cash flow purposes, it is preferable to make multiple smaller payments. Will that result in a big difference in total interest paid? The answer there turns out to be no, it won’t. Depending on the amount owed and repayment length, the difference is only a few hundred dollars.
Looks like stare down, literally.
Perhaps it’s a cat feeder as well:
Feel free to supply your own caption in the comments.
Yesterday during breakfast, the lass was excited because her dance costume for her upcoming recital was going to be in so she’d get to try it on. She’s actually in 2 different routines for the recital and in one of them, her group of dancers will be dressed up as Disney princesses. She’s going to be Merida from Brave.
In the course of discussing this, the lass made the comment (I’m paraphrasing) “She’s the princess who’s always getting yelled at.”
Cut to the Wife, who was visibly affected by the comment. While I’m a strong believer in not underestimating kids’ intelligence and ingenuity, I have a hard time believing that the lass was implying anything by the comment. At her age, kids tend to say exactly what is on their mind, as opposed to making thinly veiled broadsides. The Wife didn’t share that view, as it was clear she had taken the lass’ comment personally.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s say the lass was that clever. Or, more plausibly, some subconscious part of her mind identifies with Merida for the reason that she thinks she’s getting yelled at all the time. Should I or the Wife take this to mean anything?
I don’t say “No”, I say “HELL NO!”
It’s a known psychological quirk of the human species to remember negative experiences more sharply than positive experiences. Kids are no different. Indeed, add a dollop of immaturity and a pinch of child-tendency-for-drama and there’s a perfect recipe for them concluding Mom and Dad do nothing but yell at them. Heck, they might view Gitmo as a vacation getaway.
But a skewed perception does not a reality make.
Kids screw-up, all the time. Part of being a parent is figuring out which screw-ups require intervention for corrective purposes. Obviously, when a kid touches a hot stove, they don’t need to be yelled at. They’ve received all the corrective information required in the form of a nice, painful burn.
But how many times do they have to be asked to pick up their rooms? My limited experience informs me that it is exactly as many times as a parent is will to ask them. I ask once. Politely. If they don’t respond, Hell follows. Most of the time, I only have to ask once. The Wife is cut from similar cloth. I’ve watched the parents who ask. Then ask again. And again. And again. While their patience is impressive, it’s not the way I, or the Wife roll.
So the kids are going to get yelled at. They make different sorts of mistakes all the time, or variations of the same one all the time. Like when they start fighting and disturbing the household with their antics. They get a chance to work it out and if they don’t I, or the Wife, work it out for them. Sooner or later they’ll realize it’s better that they work it out.
My point is that it’s baked into the cake that kid’s are going to get yelled at. It’s also baked into the cake that they’ll remember those times quicker. Probably a result of some evolutionary survival quirk. It’s not good for survival of the species if Grog keeps running into tar pools or eating poison berries.
The fact that they get yelled at doesn’t mean that’s all that happens. Last night I was rolling around on the floor, wrestling with the boy. He was giggling the whole time. The lass shared a tea-party with the Wife earlier this week. There are all the books and stories we’ve read together. Day trips to zoos and museums. Trips for ice cream and to the beach. Tee-ball, soccer, karate, hockey. Time spent helping with homework.
There are, in summary, no end to all the good or positive experiences we’ve all shared. They easily outnumber the negative ones. That is reality. Those aren’t the things that swirl at the leading edges of their memories. Unfortunate, but also reality.
It takes a sober second of consideration and reflection to remember. Kid’s don’t have that ability, it’s part of what defines them as a kid, an inability to see the larger world around them in any sense. Parents are adults, and we are not hampered by the same affliction. Therefore, we shouldn’t fall prey to our kids perception of their little world.
As I type this, new laws are expected to be passed here in the state some time late in the night. Originally, they expected it to sail through quickly, but some legislators in the House are throwing sand in the wheels by introducing amendments and the like.
There’s ton’s of analysis out there, but I’d say this one captures my own feelings on the law. Nothing in it would have prevented the Sandy Hook shootings. Overall, I’d say the new law falls under the old adage “something needs to be done, and this is something.”
Given yesterday’s bird feeder post, all I can say is that it didn’t take long:
The boy really does need to learn to listen to Mom and Dad. We do know some things.
This is the bird feeder we built in the boy’s Cub Scout den. It took a couple of meetings for us to get them all done. The first meeting, they cut out most of the pieces and did a little assembly. The second meeting, they were all able to complete their feeders.
It took quite a bit of effort on mine and the other Dads who were able to help out. We basically didn’t stop for the better part of 2 hours. There were 9 of them to complete. I’d say the boy’s here is typical of the work, which is to say they all came out well. A couple of the boys were amazed how those pieces of wood came together to make a bird feeder.
As for the paint job, that was the boy’s doing, with a little help from the Wife and I. We had him prime it on Saturday, then he painted it with acrylic on Sunday. I helped him fill it (we fashioned a funnel out of a paper cup that he folded up- HOORAY! for resourcefulness) and he hung it himself. He chose the colors because he thought they would be attractive to birds.
He’s been disappointed so far.
It’s only been up since yesterday and I think he expected to be shooing birds off of himself as he hung it up. He keeps checking, hoping to see some birds using it. We keep telling him it’s early and the birds haven’t all returned yet from their Winter resting places.
But patience is not a strong suit of nearly-9-year olds.
My last entry in the Shotgun Wars was quite well received, with a number of people impressed at the lass’ ability to think outside the box. Her inventiveness is to be expected. She is physically inferior to her older brother and if she wants to compete, she has little choice but to resort to creativity. In general, we all play to our strengths and both of them are doing exactly that.
The boy is not without his own moments, though. For instance, take the lass’ ruse the other day where she attempted to fool him. He was suspicious enough that he came back into the house to check with myself. He knows his sister too well.
There was also a moment a week or so ago where he made a desperate, failed bid to beat his sister out. She was well ahead of him, within a few steps of the car. (I should note that the walk to the car from our front door is short, perhaps 25 feet from the door. When shotgun is on the line, however, 25 feet can be a long way.) I was behind her and the boy, at that freeze-frame moment of time, was still in the house.
What happened next took place in about the space of 3 seconds worth of time. The boy came flying out of the house in a dead-sprint. As I took my next step, the boy pulled even with me and I could see there was a sort of maniacal grimace on his face. In the next second or so, he was at the car and in the car through the rear passenger side door. He had arrived at the car more or less simultaneously with is sister, but he was in before her.
His plan was now clear, he was attempting to end run his sister by getting in the backseat and then climbing into the front seat from inside the car. It might have worked, but the lass recognized what he was doing and she quickly mobilized to get herself into the passenger seat. Even so, it was a close call and I heard the two of them giggling as they jostled a bit over the seat. She was in superior position, as he’d only gotten about half-way into the seat before she’d climbed in and she laid claim to the prize for the ride in to school.
So the boy is capable of some creative moments as well. He just hasn’t been pushed as much because he’s a little more on the ball when it’s time to head to the car. You don’t apologize for not successfully coming from behind when the majority of time you’re winning from in front.
I’ve recently attained a renewed interest in my blog client blogtool. A big part of that renewal is due to unfinished business- I’d alway meant to release it into the wild but had never taken the time to learn how to package it. I finally took that plunge a few weeks ago. Ever since, I’ve come up with a series of improvements, fine tunings and new ideas to make it a more capable tool and a better piece of software in general.
The weather has been cool here, as I guess it’s been everywhere. We even have some snow in various places throughout the yard. Despite that, where the Sun is shines bright the yard is greening up. The gardens are full of evidence that Spring isn’t far off.
A silver mound:
A bleeding heart:
Some day lillies:
Some other lillies:
A daffodil:
The kids have been spending more time outside of late. The snow that is left they’ve been trying to melt by hosing it down. They’ve also been having fun with mud, making mudballs and the like. It makes for extra laundry for the Wife and I, but it’s nice to be sending them out.
As for the cool weather, it will come to an end soon.
Things have been heating up on both fronts since my last entry. The boy continues to use his superior physical assets to attain the prized position. The lass, in the meanwhile, has resorted to being quicker on the draw- if she’s at the car well ahead of her brother, he won’t try an all out frontal assault. My guess is he innately understands the Pyrrhic nature of such a victory.
Of the two, the boy does a better job of maintaining his composure when he loses. He betrays how deeply he wants it though with his running commentary to the effect that people younger than himself shouldn’t be allowed in the passenger seat. He also likes to poke the back of the seat.
The lass, for her part, wears her emotions on her sleeves. Well, no. Her mouth. She screams or whines or cries or some hideous combination of the three.
Heading out for errands today, it was a draw to the car. I had lagged behind because I was gathering a few things in preparation for heading out.
I must have taken longer than I thought, because the lass popped her head in the house.
“Dad, which car are we taking?”
I told her we’d take the big car, since we were going to be grocery shopping, amongst other things. The big car has the most room- otherwise it wouldn’t be the “big” car just the “light blue” car or something else mundane. As I finished up pulling things together, I had a fleeting thought: was the lass clever enough to pull a head fake?
Several seconds later, the boy poked his head in the house.
“Dad, which car are we taking?”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Why, didn’t your sister tell you?”
“Yeah, she said we’re taking the little car.”
It was all I could do not to laugh.
When I got outside, they were both struggling at the “big” car. So I walked straight over to the smaller car and got in.
The lass’ screams are still echoing throughout the countryside.
The Wife and I had agreed awhile back on our approach to the Harry Potter movies: the kids would have to read the books before we would let them see the movie. We agreed on this shortly after I had read them the first book, back when the boy was in kindergarten or 1st grade. We’re well aware there are ways our plans could get foiled but we wanted to make the effort.
With the boy having just finished the 2nd book, and now rapidly progressing through the 3rd, he was making no bones about his desire to see the movie. That was fine- he had earned it. The problem was the lass. Generally speaking, she’s going to be around when he is and thus get the opportunity to freeload off of his efforts.
We held the boy off through the past weekend until today because we realized an opportunity would present itself. The lass would be at her dance lessons for a couple of hours, during which time the boy could watch the movie.
The plan went off without a hitch, for a change. But the lass made it known she didn’t like the circumstances. When the Wife started bringing her home, the lass gave me a call to let me know they were on the way. Then, she asked what her brother was doing.
Rather than make up some kind of white lie, I opted to see how she’d handle the news. Her first response was to see if we could start the movie over again when she got home so her and Mom could see it too. When I told her “No, you can’t watch the movie yet” one of two things must have happened. Either she was completely stunned at the turn of events or she was so upset she couldn’t speak, because the phone went silent on the other end. And where the lass is anything but silent.
She finally recovered and proclaimed that the situation was “unfair.” That word again. I explained to her that it was perfectly fair. Her brother had read the book and had earned the right to watch the movie. She hadn’t read it yet, but when she did she would be allowed to watch the movie. I told her it didn’t get any more fair than that.
She… disagreed.
To her credit, she didn’t become hysterical. She just didn’t like that her brother had done something that she wouldn’t let her do as well. She even protested that she didn’t want to read the book, just see the movie. Not sure how she thought that would help her case, to be honest.
So, for now, the situation has been dealt with. But the boy is working his way through the third book and it’s going to come up again. A parent’s work is never done.
The Spiderman them line is, of course, “with great power comes greater responsibility.” Part of the charm of the Spiderman cannon is the simple truth of that statement. I don’t think you’d find anyone who’d argue that point.
When viewed in the context of a superhero, it seems kind of funny to apply that concept to kids. But I think it’s an pithy phrase for a phase the boy seems to be going through. While he doesn’t have any emerging superpowers, he does have an emerging power that he’s becoming more and more aware of.
His physicality. He’s bigger than the majority of his friends. Not just bigger, but built differently as well. Most people that first meet him typically mistake him for someone 2 to 3 years older than he really is. Basically, he’s bigger, stronger and just as fast as most of his peers.
So he’s been going through a phase lately where getting together with his friends typically results in a friend getting roughed up a bit. In his defense, the boy isn’t doing anything differently from what his friends are doing. It’s just that the results tend to be a bit more extreme. His friend’s are the ones who go flying, get knocked down and, very occasionally, get hurt.
And therein lies the problem. The boy needs to learn that his rough housing with his friends they way they all do will more likely result in someone else getting hurt than the boy. For one, his arms are at his friend’s head level in the majority of cases. And for those cases where he isn’t, he’s just bigger than they are. The laws of physics all favor him, for the time being, in those situations.
Obviously, he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. The couple of times where he has hurt someone else (and those times have both been superficial bumps- no blood or anything major) it’s been because he lost himself in the moment and either used all his strength or his size during play. Probably like any other kid might have done.
But like I told him when we put him to bed tonight, he needs to start learning to control himself a bit more. If he doesn’t start now, he may end up hurting someone more seriously down the road. I tried to help him understand by him thinking about what might happen if I used all my strength when wrestling around with him. He seemed to respond to that idea.
I don’t expect his physical advantages to diminish either. He seems to be gifted with a fair amount of athleticism to go along with his size. That means he’s going to naturally know how to use his body in ways those less gifted won’t be able to. All of these kinds of things are great, but they come with a burden as well. He won’t be able to use them to there fullest extent while goofing around with his buddies. Right now, he thinks that means he won’t be able to have fun with his friends either. That’s incorrect. He just needs to learn how to do it with restraint.
We had parent teacher conferences over the past week over with the kids’ teachers. Both of them are doing well and there aren’t any real complaints from either teacher.
But both the Wife and I couldn’t help but notice how much the lass’ teacher loves her. I mean loves her. At one point she said she didn’t need a teacher’s assistant because she had the lass.
Meanwhile, the Wife and I are both thinking “Come over for coffee one morning…”
I’ve just uploaded blogtool v1.1.0 to pypi.
The minor release number bump is due to switching the option parser library as well as adding the ability to process information from the standard input. The comment option has also been modified to take a couple of arguments.
I’ve added some spiffy, new web based documentation to help with getting up and running with blogtool. The documentation stuff was generated with the help of sphinx, a very cool tool that uses a different plain-text markup format that I’ll be exploring adding support for in blogtool.
This past Saturday, the boy and I spent the day at a martial arts tournament we both entered. It was the boy’s first real tournament, and my second. I participated in another one about a month ago and enjoyed it, as I suspected I would. Whether the boy was destined to enjoy his experience was, well, completely results oriented. I don’t know if that’s the norm for approaching-nine-year-olds, but it’s definitely the way the boy is wired.
There was a bit of confusion for him leading up to the event. For those of you not in the know, which I presume is a majority, there are 3 different competition formats at a MA tournament: breaking, forms and sparring. For adults, there is also a weapon’s form. I trust I don’t need to explain why there isn’t such a category for the kids.
The boy competed in all three formats for his age and belt level. The confusion arose because he had to decide what form he would perform and the type of break he wanted to perform. For both, he started out with one thing in mind and had to change it in the final week prior to competition. For the form, it was a quirk of the tournament format and for the breaking we were told the break he wanted to do wasn’t appropriate for his belt level.
The tournament itself was quite the affair. It was located in a hotel conference room with 10 different rings setup so multiple levels and ages could compete simultaneously. I can’t even begin to count how many different groups there were over the course of the day, so suffice it to say there were over 400 competitors at the event ages ranging from 6 to 50+ and belt levels ranging from beginner to grandmaster (typically 6th Dan and up). Just for a more specific taste, for men’s black belts alone there were at least 10 different competition levels.
The tournament didn’t get off to the greatest start, if you’re a kid that is. It started with a long memorial for the tournament’s founder who had passed away within the past year. Thankfully, I was separated from the boy since we had to arrange ourselves by belt level and the boy “outranks” me. At least where MA is concerned.
Despite the slow start, the boy’s division, “Red Belts 6-8 years old” was one of the first ones to compete.
Just let me state that, as a parent, an MA tournament is an experience in patience. Not just because of the waiting, but because there are tons of parents all scrambling to get into position to watch their kids compete. Unfortunately for me, the boy was in a center ring, so there was no “good” viewing area, except standing on a chair and watching from 50 feet away over everyone’s head. My attempts at video taping were thwarted on a number of occasions by interlopers wandering in front of my line of site. They seemed particularly well-timed for when the boy was up.
Despite the personal frustrations, the boy left with a 3rd in breaking and a 2nd in sparring. Based on the scores, I think the judges dinged him a bit for his form because they didn’t feel it level-appropriate. That’s not his fault, nor really his instructors. It was more a quirk of the tournament’s timing alongside his instruction schedule. If it were another month out, he’d have been fine on that score.
Even with the nice results, the boy still managed to be disappointed. His 2nd place in sparring particularly irked him. Getting 2nd meant he lost the 1st place match and he didn’t like that. He gets a pained expression on his face that’s unmistakable- all flushed and on the verge of tears, a sobbing-like type of breath pattern. As much as I’d like to help him work it out, it was probably for the best that he was on his own and forced to deal on his own. He maintained what was left of his composure for the awards ceremony, and just like that, he was done for the day.
He spent the remainder of the morning sitting in a little nook he fashioned out of all the equipment bags, reading his Harry Potter book, his medals dangling from his neck. A lot of his MA mates wondered what he was reading, and he got a lot of congratulations for his medals. Not a few parents were impressed as well, especially when they found out he wasn’t reading for a book report.
As for me, I won forms in my division, didn’t place in sparring and didn’t compete in breaking. I don’t know if the boy was watching the sparring, but I hope he did so he could see that it doesn’t have to be all doom-and-gloom when losing. (That comes later…)
The rest of the day, we spent watching the other competitors, especially the black belt levels. They were really something, particularly the sparring.
Towards the end of our day, the boy came up to me with a bag of peanut M&M’s he’d found in our lunch bag. The Wife’s doing- a little surprise for him. He wanted to share the bag with me. Who was I to refuse?
So we finished the bag, and by that time it was pretty late and time to get going. He chose Cracker Barrel as our spot to stop for dinner. He had rainbow trout for dinner and a fudge brownie. He enjoyed the fish, but not the brownie. I enjoyed the brownie.
On our ride home, he was mainly concerned with when he could watch the 2nd Harry Potter movie. He’d finished the 2nd book and started reading the 3rd one. He was disappointed he couldn’t watch it when we got home, but it was going to be too late for movies by then.
When we did arrive home, the Wife and the lass had one more surprise- “gourmet” cupcakes. They grabbed a couple of pistachio flavored cupcakes, one of his favorite. As well as mine, funny coincidence that.
The boy has already made mention of his “next” tournament. So it’s safe to assume that, even though he didn’t win, he’d enjoyed the day well enough.
That made two of us.