This past weekend, Delanie had her first basketball practice. We (Scott and I) have been anxiously waiting for this day for a very long time.
Before we had even decided to have kids, we had watched a kinder-basketball practice/game at the rec center one evening after working out. It was so cute and fun we decided, if we ever had kids, we would definitely sign them up for this. Fast forward six-ish years, and you have this past weekend.
It was really really cute, and Delanie had a BLAST. Try, if you can, to imagine 20-25 four to six- year-olds doing dribbling drills, practicing a defensive posture, shooting posture, hoop shooting, and passing drills. That about sums up the entire hour. It was adorable...to me at least...in the beginning.
Scott on the other hand, was quite uncomfortable. It was not sitting well with him that his little darling wasn't very good. In fact, when it came to dribbling in particular, she was horrible. I kind of giggled through it, and casually looked over at Scott to see if he was finding it just as amusing. He looked at me and said "I might have to leave, this is just to painful to watch." I told him that under no circumstances was he to leave, and he obliged.
After hearing him say that, I too couldn't help but feel...well...uncomfortable. Some of the other kids had obviously had some past training, but some were in the same boat as Delanie. It didn't matter. It was hard. We both wanted to go out there and help her. Do not worry, we remained calmly in our seats.
Thankfully, after what felt like an eternity, they switched to a shooting drill, which she ROCKED at. For a while we were feeling much more at ease. Scott was still swearing up and down that the first thing he was going to do when he got home was to set up some dribbling drills for Delanie to work through each day.
As I was listening to him go on and on about how he was going to make her the star, I couldn't help but notice a few things. First, Delanie didn't care at all that she was having a hard time. In fact, I don't even think she noticed one bit. She ran up and down that gym, chasing the ball she was supposed to be dribbling, with a grin so big it lit up the whole place. Secondly, and almost more importantly, my perfectionistic daughter never gave up. Not once. We never saw her stop and sit in the middle of the gym floor pouting and complaining, "I can't do it!". Nope, it didn't happen. Instead she giggled, ran, laughed out loud, cheered, gave high-fives, and tried her best all hour long.
When it was all done, we asked if she had fun. She said she loved it. She immediately put on the team shirt, that was passed out after practice, over her sweat suit, and wore it proudly to lunch. She talked about practice for the rest of the day, and can't wait to go back next Saturday.
Thankfully, there have been no dribbling drills since then, like promised. I think she could coach me through a few drills though.
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