The past few moths have been particularly trying. The past couple of weeks even more so.
Yesterday was yet another busy roller coaster day. Emotions were high (and low) in our house. The events may seem trivial to everyone else but us.
M2 played in her last basketball tournament. Unlike M1, who was a strong offender and defender on her team, M2 had struggled in practice & at previous games. I’m sure she felt discourage and wanted to give up playing on the team at times. But she has a good work ethic, she never missed a morning practice, and even if she only played a couple of shifts each game she always gave 100% effort. Yesterday at the last tournament of the basketball season she score her first and only basket of the season. And her team won the tournament. She was elated. So proud. Lots of high emotions running there.
M1 had her first badminton tournament yesterday. She also had dance practice later in the evening. At first she thought she could do both, running from one event to the next. But as the tournament progressed, she realized that it was likely her & her partner were going to advance to the final round. She felt pressured by her partner to stay and finish the tournament with him rather than having another girl substitute in for her. She wanted to but she was afraid she’d get in trouble with her dance instructor for not showing up to practice last minute. Usually I encourage her to make her own decisions and accept its consequences. Yesterday she couldn’t. She was clearly distraught and was afraid of letting her badminton partner down as well as her dance teammates. So The Big Oh & I had to fix this one for her. The Big Oh told her dance teacher she wouldn’t be going to practice, I texted the other dance mom’s & apologized M1 would be a last minute no-show. M1 stayed and played the tournament and won first place in mixed doubles. Then she made it to the last 1/2 hour of dance practice. All good right? Well her high of winning her tournament quickly came crashing down when her dance teacher asked her “Why did she show up if she said she wasn’t coming!”. Her teammates were angry at her b/c they had to practice their dances without her. She had to sit thru half an hour of some harsh words and sour faces. M1 apologized to her teammates & got no reaction back. Her dance teacher would not re-run most of her dances because they had already practiced them without her. She kept herself together until she came home and broke down crying. She thought her teacher & teammates would have appreciated her effort to make it to practice when she could have just gone home. Another day in the life of a teenaged dancer. Hopefully when she goes to dance practice today everyone will have forgotten yesterday & it will be back to “normal”.
And M3? She was very pleased she got 10/10 in her spelling dictation for the second week in a row!
Y.C.
P.S. M2 was also very stressed last night. After a day-long basketball tournament she also had 2 hours of dance practice. She saw how her sister was being treated when she showed up and it upset her. Seeing her sister cry bothered her. She ended the night crying too because I asked her to put away some clothes, of course that was just an excuse to release the bottled up anger & frustration she was harbouring inside. Just another normal day in my not-so-normal-life,
