Junior Prom: Kids on Top of the World

Our oldest recently attended his junior prom. It was a beautiful night, and before the festivities, one of the families graciously hosted an alcohol free cocktail party and dinner. Pictures were taken with the Golden Gate and San Francisco in the background. It truly was a stunning.

Canadian Chronicles: Eyes Ahead: What Is Coming Down the Pike? Goofy adages and the Y2K Teen.

My son recently returned from a trip to China. He cursed me about my little “sayings.” He said, when he uses them, no one knows what he is talking about.

Hmmmm? Cooking on the back burner? Doing something like a house on fire? A month of Sundays?

Well, today, as I changed and washed sheets after our first round of guests, I was thinking about the next jump.

The next jump you may ask? Yes, when I was riding and jumping on a course, you always kept your eyes ahead and looked where you were going next. Look where you want to go…

I have a gazillion sayings that come just from me and my own experience. I suppose they are not written down anywhere and no one else in their right mind uses them, but they are a kind of short hand scrawl in my family.

My kids certainly know what “putting a bounty” on an item means. If we have to “fly like an eagle” they had better hurry up and get out the door or we’ll for sure be late.

Someone asked how I felt when all of the guests leave and I’m alone. My mind is always on the path to the next item, I’m never in the moment of the leaving, I’m approaching the next jump in my mind.

Last Game on the Field of Dreams

We have this picture perfect, manicured little baseball diamond in our cozy town. Our school is right next door, and every time I stop by to drop off a forgotten lunch or paper in the spring, there is someone tenderly tending the field.

Eight years ago, my little guy with his baseball mitt from Toys R Us started his little league career. The T-ball diamond, adjacent to the big, fancy field, is a super cute, mini version of the big kid's diamond and stands in the shade of a big, perfect-for-climbing tree.

All the little kids watch the big diamond in awe. If you are a kid and you love baseball, this is the place you dream of playing. It is your big leagues. It is your majors. There's a light up scoreboard and enthusiastic parent announcers in the skybox. The snack shack sells dogs, peanuts in the shell and nachos with the mandatory neon orange cheese.

As a family, we've moved up through the little league ranks. Our son has made his way through multiple positions, and both fantastic and heart wrenching plays. He's hit a homer and one one memorable occasion lost his permanent front tooth. We've experienced the good, bad, ugly and exceedingly excellent of coaches. We've been the winning team and the team that lost every single game.

If you hang around little league until you're 12, you are serious about baseball and you play or practice all of the time. It holds a family hostage from March until June. I am sad to see the last game John will play on this magical field--even though I've sat on the metal seats so much this year that my back is in spasm.

The ping of the bat, the sound of a hard, fastball hitting the mitt, parental chuckles and angst. The smell of hot dogs, the tranquil green of the field flanked by blue sunny skies, and the dust that kicks up in the infield-- these all will always be in our memories of John's childhood.

Today, 8 years later, John will have to grab his gear and walk away from the field for his last time as a player. George and I will be right by his side, squinting into the evening sun as we leave a chunk of childhood behind. It will be a sad, growing-up-way-too-fast, good-bye.