Basketball and a Saturday afternoon

The two boys are on a Kindergarten basketball league thru our local YMCA. It is one of the funniest things. First of all, they have 14 teams of 10 boys and girls. Mostly boys (our team has one girl) - who haven't done any basketball before. They alternate from double dribbling to traveling and all smiles the whole time. R. has been anticipating this for a long time. We signed up in like September - right as soccer was starting up for the fall season. The first practice/game was the 2nd Saturday in January. Both boys got new sneakers and a ball for Christmas.

Yesterday they had pictures at 9:20AM. It was fun seeing about 5 groups of 10 Kindergarteners in one room trying to make space for individual and then team pictures. Matthew has taken to holding his head in this awkward upward turn in pictures...Don't know if it has to do with his strabismus surgery or not. I don't remember him doing it beforehand, but the photographer was able to get him keep it down for the second it took to take the picture. Then, they were great during the team picture and we left to stop rapidly at Food Lion to pick up more food coloring cuz I was going to try my hand at decorating Logan's Dora the Explorer birthday cake.

Their practice /game session was at 10 am. They practice for a half hour and then they have a game against another team. There are no fouls, no score-keeping, no blocking shots...they do (on occasion) call traveling and the teams try and do throw ins from the sides after turn overs. But, mostly there is running back and forth and occasional shooting and rare baskets. Riley was able to score once. Matthew got a couple of rebounds...one time, he got the rebound just as the whistle was blown to do substitutions. Boy was he mad that he had to give the ball to someone else and couldn't run down to the other side.

I'm amazed that after 3 sessions, both of the boys have made a lot of progress with teamwork (passing the ball NEVER happened in soccer), with understanding offense and defense, and are having a great time.

Today one of the coaches met the kids at the YMCA for a practice session. It was a great idea. The kids loved the practice session, they did a lot of shooting (and scoring) and then the coach took them to the track above the gym and they did laps. Hopefully they will all fall asleep after dinner.