I was searching for the Higher Ed thread, found this, figured it would probably be a better place to share.

So, the boy took the PSAT in the fall. Scored a 1500 (of 1520). Solid National Merit territory. Took the real deal in January, got his score back today.

1570.

Damn, son.

Nice work, good on him cuervo.

Thanks. I mean, a lot of this comes easy for him -- he never did take any prep courses -- but he's worked his ass off too (he had some all-nighters as a soph, but landed a 5 on the AP World test for his efforts).

He's what my dad had in mind when stressing to me to "apply yourself."

District basketball tonight. My daughter played 3 of the 4 quarters. Scored her first basket as a varsity player.
She ended up with 4 points, 3 rebounds. 2 blocks and a steal. Her team won 68-33 and plays in the district final game Friday.
Nice night for a freshman.

Im a proud Dad.

Picture of my daughter in her last varsity game of the season. We lost in OT in the district final. She disrupts the lay up and the girl missed badly.

Three year old hit the trifecta.

Both ears infected + strep.

Daughter went to an offensive post camp today. Steve Stipanovich was running it. You may remember he played for Missouri, then had a nice career in the NBA.
He told my daughters AAU coach that my daughter was a gifted basketball player. He told me he was impressed with her after the camp.

Already knew the grades but the lists, etc. have now posted so

Year one of college for Will is complete:
Fall semester: Dean's List
Spring semester: Chancellor's List

missed a 4.0 in the second semester by one class, by 8 points out of 500 possible, that amount would have rounded him up. Pretty damned close, I ain't gonna complain.

Had to look this thread up and bump it with an update.
My daughter played out the 7th grade year on volleyball primarily as a "middle hitter"... with all the other front liners they were allowed to serve then rotate out.

Our middle school coach insists on over hand serving only, despite numerous opponents underhand serving. Well my daughter just couldnt get the over hand down. Or more accurate she couldnt get it up. Every one in the net. But she kept working and played club volleyball this spring. She insisted on overhand serving even though her success rate was sub 50%.

Wednesday night was the first game of the middle school season against our cross town rival, btw she made the team again - which went from a stress ball last year to a given this year- funny how that works. Coach told her before the game I'm letting you serve first rotation and we will see how you do from there. First game her serve comes up she gets it over but its returned, we dont save and she is broken. Next rotation she gets 2 serve points then faults into the net. They ultimately lose the first game 25-17. Second game is a nail biter. Her first serve rotation they sub for her and the other girl runs three points off. Mom and I realize she probably wont be serving anymore today, and we start to discuss and prepare for consoling her a bit as we know she will be disappointed. Second serve rotation, another sub.

Second game trailing 21-22 her 3rd serve rotation comes up.... coach doesnt sub. Cool Thanks, Coach! Kylie proceeds to rip off 4 points including back to back aces to win the game! The entire team mobbed her and tackled her to the floor it was a uber cool parent moment...even if a bit blurry to see.

Sadly the story book ended with a 15-10 tie breaker loss.

My sophomore daughter has earned a starting position on her HS varsity team. She is 6'1" tall and has been playing AAU.

Her team starts 4 juniors and her. The team has been given little chance to do much this season. We graduated 4 seniors that accounted for 95% of all our stats last year. They finished 23-5.

Well, tonight we won the Lutheran South Tournament. 63-60 in OT. One of our guards threw up an off balance, contested 3 at the end of tegulation to send it to OT.

My daughter made 3 of 4 FTs in OT. SHe finished with 8 points, 6 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

Very exciting.

She is listed in the area leaders in rebounds and blocked shots in the St Louis Post Dispatch.

Very proud of her start to here season.

Parent fail.

The tooth fairy didn't come last night. Whoops.

Been there.

7YO sitting at the breakfast table. She suddenly looks up. "I forgot to look under my pillow!" She starts to get up from the table.

"WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" says the dad cooking breakfast, who then invents completely on-the-spot non-sensical reason why he needs to go upstairs and check on "something" even though the stovetop is sizzling...

Dola, to whomever came up with the tooth fairy: it's kind of a creepy concept.

Double dola: I mean, what am I supposed to say when my kid asks what she does with them all?

Hell, it's no worse than Santa....the old fat man who keeps lists of children and watches them sleep.

Yeah, we did that one.

Left a note the next night and $5. Normally, the tooth fairy left a dollar.

Yep, we did the exact same. He actually lost both his front teeth on the same day. One buck normal, up to five bucks.

10 bucks and a nice note from the tooth fairy. Good haul for the lad.

Daughter was honored as her High Schools Athlete of the week.

Proud moment.

And the good stuff keeps coming for my youngest daughter.

She earned Academic All-State for Cross Country.

A week after being named the athlete of the week for basketball. See above. :)

Parent Fail: Level 2

Daughter's old letter to the tooth fairy fell to the ground from atop our dresser, and she found it.

Immediately asked me, "Are you the tooth fairy?"

D'oh!

Alright guys, I've reached that stage of parenthood.

Who's got swingset / playground set recommendations? For somewhat older kids (7 and 4, and they're both very tall for 7 and 4).

My youngest, my little girl, starts kindergarten today. I'm not crying, its just allergies.

I don't have a specific recommendation, but whatever you do spend the money to have them assemble it. 3 of us, 2 who worked in construction, took almost 10 hours to put ours together.

My kids are old now, and parenting just changes as they get older. Things are so much more complicated for them. You have to relate to them as adults and know that their problems are big problems now. They are so close to going out to make their own way in the world and it's completely terrifying.

My middle son is in therapy right now because he's a high achieving perfectionist (wonder where he gets that from....hmmm) and is going through the exact same thing that I went through when I was in college. He is finding out that the path that he's been working toward for 4 years isn't going to happen. He's finding that there is an academic wall that he can't survive, and that his math skills, while good, aren't cut out for the high level stuff he hoped. He didn't get accepted to the residential high school, but his best friend, that he told to apply, did.

He's had some bad thoughts, and he's battle a lot of depressive feelings since early this year. I think we finally might be through the worst of the down cycle. I knew school starting again, would be a big trigger, and it was. I hope, hope hope, that he's coming out the other side, with a new outlook and new goals to strive for.

My wife feels completely lost. She was awesome when they were little, but the amount of brain power and stress that comes with parenting older kids puts her out of her depth most of the time. We only have a couple years left until they are gone and I dread it. I am super attached to them, and as much as I know they have to leave, it breaks my heart thinking about them going. The wife and I are a great team though and we are preparing for that time. She knows she'll need to be the rock, while I'm reduced to tears.

Wanna fly out to the Springs and put whatever I get together? :)

There is no amount of money that would make me do that

Perfect, 'cause I was offering you no money!

Almost the exact same story with my neighbor and he is also in construction.

Parental right of passage complete. Need to re-seat the anchors a bit tomorrow, and see if it can't be leveled any more (the yard is slightly angled, so not a ton I can do there).

Leveling can actually be pretty easy and discreet.
Scrape the mulch back. Place the legs on the left in the picture onto a couple pieces of 2x10 cut to maybe 12-15" lengths (maybe stack two high if needed to get level height. If so run a couple screws through the board to keep them from shifting)

Then cover well with the mulch and use it to blend away the hump.


Just did this exact thing for my 4 year old twin nieces.

That Sbux cup is the most critical tool in this process I'd think

Putting those things together is a pain. I did it with my FIL and I suck at that type of thing.
Your kids look like they are enjoying it already. Good stuff.

Let me start with "he's fine, car is fine, all is fine". HOWEVER .... You wanna know how strong genetics can be?

Kid calls at 2something this morning asking about his car insurance info since he's been in a minor fender bender. Now these things happen, nothing especially notable about that.

Then genetics kick in ... who else but my kid gets backed into by a cop?

Sorry son, somehow I figure this is my fault.

18 months ago, my then 9 year old son decided that he wanted to try to play competitive baseball. It was kind of surprising as the interest came out of the blue. We went to several Rays games over the previous three years but he never showed any interest in playing. So I signed him up for the fall instructional league and before his first practice, I took him to the local batting cages. Since he writes with his right hand, I had try hitting right handed. He took 20 swings from the right side against the beginner pitching machine and missed all of them. When he played soccer and basketball, he was more left side dominant so I had him try from the left side. He did a little better. He hit one out of twenty. He said "Dad, I don't know if I can't hit the ball." He then started his first fall season with a coach that ... well let's just say he was not a nice man and now has the arrest documents to prove it. Things got better when he moved to a different team for the remainder of the fall season and his first year in spring ball went okay. All the while my son tolerated practicing with his old man with the arthritic elbow. I was throwing 1 out of every three pitches into the ground in the cage and striking out when I tried to hit balls to him :banghead:

Entering his second season of spring ball, I asked him what his goals for the season were. He said he wanted to learn how to pitch and he wanted to make the all star team.

Well he played mostly first base (his best position) and the corner outfield positions. He hit over .400 for the season He did get to start a game (first inning 1,2,3, second inning not so much). He came in as a reliever a couple of times with similar results. His coach chose him to start an elimination game in the end of year tournament. He tossed 4 no hit innings before being subbed out due to a high pitch count.

Today he was selected to his league's All Star team. I can confidently say he got none of his baseball skills from me:D

8 years ago this week I took Will to his first bar/club show.
(Black Stone Cherry / Pop Evil / Kyng / Lansdowne)

As I'm typing this, he's standing in a packed out 160 year old Ulster Hall in Belfast ... to see Black Stone Cherry.

I mostly had to stay outta the way & not screw him up as far as parenting goes but, by God, I did the music thing RIGHT.

edit to add: And yes, he's familiar with the opening act (Kris Barras) too, been on our playlists for 2+ years despite zero U.S. presence.

My daughter just found out she got into Missouri S and T. She wants to be an engineer and this is one of the nest engineering schools in the nation.
Early admission for her.

She is so excited as we are for her.

Congrats all around. Few greater sighs of relief I can recall than the point where that decision is made & done & settled.

Give or take, about eight hours from now I'll wave at the kid as he heads back to school to start his senior year.

You'd think that after three years of this stuff it'd get easier. I can't say that it has. I know better what to expect from it than I did the first time, I have some more coping skills for it than I started with .. but it still completely fucking sucks.

I'll tell you something though ... I'd sure rather think it sucks and hate seeing him leave than to be glad to see him go.

First time in his school history my boy's getting a note sent home from the teacher (3rd grader). Not a fun feeling.

I've never heard of the Cogat tests until now, but my son scored very high on them.

Daughter ran her last XC meet. And the last we HAVE to go to. Sad day around our house as a lot of lasts are coming up.

Daughter was named to the All Tournament team this week.
3 games
1st game she had 19 points, 15 rebounds and 4 blocks
2nd game she had 13 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks
3rd game she had 17 points, 14 rebounds and 4 blocks. She was 15-18 from the free throw line in this game.

Proud moment for us.

Tomorrow is probably the end of my daughters basketball career. District tourney game at 4:30. Team has been playing terribly lately. My daughter is the focal point of every teams defense. She sees double teams and triple tea,s and box and 1s.

No one is stepping up and carrying the load. Our offense is stagnant.

This is the end. I am literally crying about this. I am very emotional. I knew she would be a good BB player. Even in her early days. I spent so much time and effort in helping her become the best player possible. And she has averaged a double-double as a senior.

I also have invested much time in her as a scholar and she is going to one of the best engineering school sin the country to study engineering.

But god damn it. I love sports. MY dream was to go to a college stadium and watch my kid play. That did not materialize. That is okay. I have come to terms with that.

But I am really sad that this is the last time I will see my daughter play basketball. EVER.

Im in tears as I write this. I really need a release. Maybe this is it.

It has been a journey of about 12 years of me coaching her and directing her career and finding her teams and going to practices an hour away and tourneys 8 hours away and etc. stc.

I love watching her play. My all time favorite past time. And now its over.

Such a hard time.

First (biological) born kid turned 18 today.



Quite a milestone.


---




tarcone, I feel you man. We pour so much into these kids and we cheer, and teach, and love and they grow up and time kicks our asses.

And after 4 years of steady work, Will successfully defends his Honors Thesis.

He's my kid, so is it really any surprise that it was a 2-1 split decision following a 45 minutes knockdown drag out fight?

At the end of the day, it means an endorsement on his diploma and a medal that'll eventually end up in a drawer somewhere I'm sure ... but four years of work -- and good, thorough work at that -- on a single project warrants a bit of celebration. 4 years, at his age, that's basically 20% of his lifetime.

(Now if admin will process one more piece of paperwork so he can actually, you know, GRADUATE ... that'd be great)