o'side daddy raisin' younguns in socal

February 13, 2008

activities

Filed under: — crowder @ 7:06 pm

The boys have the following weekly (or more) engagements:

  • Swimming (Monday and Wednesday)
  • School (Tuesday and Thursday)
  • Gymnastics (Friday Morning)
  • Skateboarding (Friday Afternoons)

Today, we added

  • Pee-Wee Golf

They’re busy.  They have more going on in their lives than I do!

Golf was interesting; Reid likes it and is good at it.  As usual, he seems to have a natural instinct for things like how to grip the club and posture.  He also suffers from his usual weakness at anything even vaguely competitive: he hates the idea of not being good at it.  Failing to hit the ball frustrates him.  Being given guidance on improving his grip or his stance or his swing frustrates him.  Being asked to help clean up golf-balls frustrates him.  Not for the reason you may think, though…  he wouldn’t mind the clean-up part.  What makes him collapse to the ground in tears is the idea of having to try to race some other kid to pick up the ball.  He can’t stand that another child might get a ball before him.  If the one ball he’s picked gets picked up by another kid, he freaks.

Ollie on the other hand has a great attitude, but struggles with the mechanics.  I think as much as he loves to build things, he still struggles with his fine-motor skills.  His grip on a golf-club devolves from hot-dogs and buns (the coach’s nickname for a proper grip) to some sort of horrible spaghetti nightmare.  He goes limp when you try to adjust his feet, he bends WAY over trying to mimic the posture of an adult holding a child’s club instead of adjusting for his own height.  Instead of an arcing swing from pizza (an “L”-shaped primary arm in a tall posture, as if carrying a box of pizza one-handed) to bubble-gum (toe pointed, as if displaying the bottom of ones shoe for a bubble-gum check), Ollie hoists his club straight over his head, ready to split wooden logs, or pound his tiny plastic golf-ball into the astro-turf.

They both seemed to have a good time, overall, but a tired post-practice Reid denied finding any enjoyment in golf.  Next week will be interesting.

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