Rest Day

So I wrote the other day about how my son and I are always out on our street playing hockey.  On Saturday we were at it again, and I don't think that was a good idea.  We just wanted to be prepared for his first game in over a month, and yesterday morning he was sleepwalking on the ice.  Or sleepskating?  He had low energy and wasn't himself.  So I think from now on, we will take the day before the game as a rest day, which is how we had been approaching it.

He hasn't practiced piano and drums in a long time, so maybe we'll focus on music on days before games.

I learned piano when I was nine.  I was quite good.  I could read notes and play them, and according to my teacher, I kept good tempo as well.  But I didn't like going to lessons and I stopped going and nobody pushed me to go.  I've tried again later on, but it was never the same.  I keep relearning and forgetting.

That's why I always give my son a nudge with his activities.  He would rather just watch TV or play video games, of course, but once we're out, he does get into the zone and keeps working on improving his skills.

Sometimes I forget that he needs a break.  So today we just stayed inside.  It was raining out so it was a good excuse (although that never stopped us before).

The kids watched their shows.  We played Sorry.  The older one taught the younger one to play chess.  We watched a documentary on Aardman Animation, and now they're watching "Shaun The Sheep".

I was eleven years old when I left the Philippines to live in America.  That's how old my first born is now.  It was tough for me to leave all my friends and stay inside a small apartment all day.  That's why I always make sure my kids appreciate our house and neighborhood.

Restarting up this blog the past few days has been a bit enlightening.  I am realizing more that a lot of my involvement with my kids has to do with my own childhood.  When I was that age, no one was certainly thinking about getting me game ready, or rest days, or just setting up play dates with a friend or teammate.  When I meet a nice kid, I go out of my way to get him or her with my kid together.  When I was that age, my mom and her friends thought I had a girlfriend named Dawn because I once mentioned I walked home with my friend Don after school.  But she was always working, so it's understandable.  I certainly understood at that time, but now that I am older and have my own kids, some feelings of resentment are surfacing and I'm surprisingly less objective about it than I was at the time.  

My mom signed me up for Boy Scouts actually.  I went once or twice.  But she was busy and we didn't stay on top of it and I stopped going.

I wanted to try out for basketball.  I was excited.  Then my classmates showed me the skills you needed to be able to do to make the team, and I was a bit taken aback that you were expected to know them already.   I had expected to be taught those skills.  I didn't even try.

The closest thing I got to hockey was when I went to a family friend's house in the suburbs.  He lived across a school parking lot.  We were watching TV one morning, and I looked outside and noticed a bunch of kids on rollerblades, about ten year olds, gathering in the lot.  They had a net and sticks and they played roller hockey.  I was kinda envious, but I didn't want to show it.  I just kind of wished I was one of them.

And there were no parents there.  It's like they just did it on their own.  Or have been doing so.  Like, wouldn't it be nice to be ten, get up on a Saturday morning, put on your skates and meet your friends at the school parking lot for some roller hockey?

I took a couple of looks at those kids and then I kind of forced myself to stop watching.  

Another time at that same lot, I saw a dad and his boy go there to practice pitching.  I remember thinking something like, this is real life.  This is the kind of scene you always see on TV or something, and people actually do it.

I was sixteen when I learned how to dribble.  Self taught.  I mean, my friends would try to help from time to time, but it did take me years to just finally get it.

When I was in college, I was shooting around in the gym.  Across the court there was this dad and his daughter.  I kinda paused and watched them when I noticed he wasn't taking any shots.  He was there just to simply catch the ball and pass it to her.  He was there just so she could work on her shots.  That moment was etched in my memory.

When I was a kid in the Philippines, my dad told me that bouncing a ball off the floor and into the net was worth ten points.  I spent my afternoons after school working on that.  I mean, it's bad enough that he was not involved, but to just feed me b.s. like that?  I just really don't understand it sometimes.

I didn't say anything to my kid until we got home.  I think he was playing Pokemon Go while I was driving.  Eventually I told him I didn't think that was his best game.  And he kept saying, "Sorry, Dad."  And I kept saying, "Don't apologize."  It's hard navigating that fine line between motivating him and pressuring him.  It's not easy, but I'm trying.

I asked him if he wanted to be better and if he wanted his coaches and teammates to be able to count on him.  He said yes.  And then I told him today was a rest day.