Monkey Bars

Here is Alice's first attempt at the monkey bars all by herself. Not to shabby for a three year old.

Here is a great song by Jurassic 5 called Monkey Bars as well: http://www.last.fm/music/Jurassic+5/_/Monkey+Bars

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Today I little piece of my heart broke. A tiny verbal knife opened me up ever so slightly and removed a tiny part of me that I guess I don't need anymore. Maybe as we progress as parents and see our children do the right thing without being told, part of our job as a parent ends. Maybe, just maybe, as we continue to try to influence our children positively and they embrace the freedom to make mistakes and be independent we are supposed to have those moments when we know they are growing up.

For the past two weeks I have been anxiously waiting for Ruby's first all school mass at St. Therese. Now that she is in kindergarten, once a week the kids get to come over as a school and celebrate spirituality, kindness, compassion, caring for the poor, and especially saying prayers to God and saying thanks for all the blessing in our lives. My wife has asked me not to share too readily my personal relationship with God on this blog and I respect her want of privacy. I believe all you need to know is that I have a relationship with God and even God thinks I talk too much sometimes. Go figure.

Back to the subject, my expectations were that I would roll into mass, sneak into the pew next to her, she would high five me or something close to this guys reaction:

In reality I saw my daughter age right before my eyes. After the opening introduction and prayers we took our seats and I learned over and whispered, "Are you surprised and excited that I came to your first all school mass?"

"Actually Dad, I was hoping I would get to go to mass by myself for the first time ever," she flatly responds.

Man, when she hits you with those giant brown eyes and the disappointment is palpable just by the way she is standing there you feel a little bad. I deserved the comment and I should have done a better job of thinking about it from her perspective. I spend so much time worrying about how things will affect me or in this case, make me look good I entirely failed to recognize the significance of this for her. She has been going to church for a long time, she knows all the calisthenics associated with the Catholic mass. She loves being a leader and setting an example for the other kids in her class and this was going to be one of those times and I took that opportunity away.

It wasn't that I'm not cool or that she doesn't want to spend time with me because believe me I was on the pity pot first. What's up is that the things we have been doing, and her teachers have been doing, and her grandparents have been doing, and her coaches have been doing are working.

She is growing up and taking little pieces of my heart with her as she goes.

Kids in Stadiums - What is Tolerable?

Just got home from the 3-1 victory by Sporting Kansas City over the Portland Timbers. When I new the best soccer specific stadium was being built in my backyard, it wasn't fathomable that I would pass on the opportunity to be a season ticket holder. Never in my life have I been a season ticket holder for anything. Not sports, art, culture, music, or venues. This was a once in a lifetime situation to be part of something special and there won't be an inaugural season at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park again. That's right. LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. No where else in the country has a professional sports team decided that instead of selling the naming rights to the highest bidder, they would go the opposite way and put a philanthropic organization on the door. Sporting Kansas City is actually paying them to put their name on that. How refreshing. Talk about being good citizens and taking corporate responsibility to another level.

I wanted to get my thoughts down about an incident that happened tonight that has been sticking in my craw. My two tickets are in the Members Stand. It was and still is known as the Cauldron or Blue Hell. It is where the diehard supporters who sing, chant, and dance stand the whole game are located. You could sit but you wouldn't be able to see and someone would probably yell at you. This is where I wanted and chose to buy my season tickets. It's a lot of fun and it feels good to be around fans that are as passionate as I am about the beautiful game. Sporting has done an excellent job in marketing and developing a business plan that will grow membership in the club and season ticket holders by allowing anyone to sign up and become a member. By being a member, you can reserve up to three individual tickets (one per game) and see a three games for free. It's a way to get people in the new stadium and show them the high level of product they are selling. By being in the Cauldren, you can't help but have fun and enjoy the atmosphere, while planting the seed that this is a good value proposition and the ROI becomes pretty clear. My only suggestion on this plan is to tell the greeters, when someone comes in the members entrance, to ask them if this is their first game. The Cauldron is where the free ticket seats are and that takes up the entire north end of the field but there is a section of seats along the northeast corner that are available as well. I would encourage first timers with kids to sit over there and if they don't mind a bit of rowdiness to move to the end section at the half.

The reason I would think twice about letting small kids sit over there is the language. Tonight, there were two gentlemen who were coming to their first Sporting match. Ruby and I got there early (it was Omar Bravo bobblehead night) and we wanted to make sure we were front row about twenty yards from the northwest corner of the field. See the picture below to see how close to the corner we were.

By the way that's Graham Zusi who scored two goals tonight. The second by being the right place at the right time and the fiirst by putting a wicked strike on the ball and scoring a fantastic goal. Anyway, these two guys, especially one in particular were being rather obnoxious, drunk, cursing for no reason and ripping people in the crowd. They obviously were more interested in what was going on in the Cauldron than what was going on, on the field. One dude kept commenting on how the songs were lame, people looked weird, and yelling at the players for no reason. Freedom of speech is something I feel passionate about so I exercised my freedom and asked him if he was going to continue to worry more about how cool he was or if he was going to cheer for Sporting. He didn't take to kindly to what I said but just huffed, puffed, and said no more. Long story short, Ruby and I left at half because we were up 2-0 and it is a school day tomorrow.

What irked me is not the colorful language he was using, I like to be salty at times with my speech, but rather his lack of awareness of his surroundings. His ticket was free but let's say for instance he paid $100 dollars and felt he needed to get his money's worth. Would he really have had less of a good time if he wasn't dropping f-bombs and calling the opposing goalie a fag? Has the bar really been set that low that we have come to accept that in sports it is okay to be disrespectful to people simply because we paid the price of admission. Now these two were the exception not the rule based on the first ten or twelve games I've gone to, it just makes me disappointed that we have lowered our expectations of individual behavior.

I told Ruby before and after the game that I wanted to apologize for some of the language she was going to hear and that in no way do I condone it, but by taking her I feel like I am condoning it by my actions. There is a quote that is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain saying something to the effect of "don't let your schooling get in the way of your education." My kids understand what is right and what is wrong. The values we are instilling in them will overshadow the poor actions demonstrated by anothers especially when Emily or myself are there to discuss the actions or words in question. I believe that if we do this enough that the right choice will be made even when we are not there.

This is a fairly disconnected entry and I'm not really looking for a resolution. What I'm hoping is that more people will take a moment to think about others for a second before they decide what path they are going to take. The damn golden rule.