6.5 Growing up

I've had occasion on the past two days to notice just how much my kids are growing up. They are looking so poised and put together. Not all the time, of course, but enough to give long insights into the poised and graceful adults they may become.

S has played soccer since he was 5. It became rather obvious early that he has a defensive player's mentality and focus. He's played goalie at least half time for the past five years. I'm not a particularly good soccer mom (I think I've mentioned that before) and as a consequence I am not a viewer of the games on a regular basis. As such, I think I am more struck by the differences in abilities in play from one game I see to the next, than are some of the parents who go and watch week in and week out.

I saw about half of S's game this past Wednesday. Their other primary goalie having been on the injured list for about 6 weeks, S was in goal for the whole game. They tied 1-1. I asked him afterwards how he felt the game had gone. "Pretty well. I made two mistakes." The mistakes had nothing to do with the goal against him. In his opinion, they were errors in judgement in his strategy as leader of the defense, in his deployment of the defensive players on the field. They hadn't lead to goals against his team, but had jeopardized their chances. Pretty good for insight for a 13 year old.

Then, last night we went to K's year end concert performance, the last performance of the high schools seniors. All the different groups were so poised and so professional in their presentations, difficult work and almost all of it a capella. I was very proud of them.