End of tennis season

Grendel's tennis team had an end-of-season party yesterday at one of the team's house. Hubby and I are usually not very social, plus we kind of got into a tiff right before we were supposed to leave for the party. However, the other parents were a lot of fun. We were having such a good time that most of the parents (including us) ended up staying for over seven hours. The parents sat around the dining room eating and chatting, while the guys (mostly) played video games in the basement.

Grendel ended up slashing his hand open during one of their brief forays into the great outdoors. I was a bad mom. I let one of the other exuberant moms clean the wound while he whined like a big baby (we ALL were laughing at his whining - which made him ham it up all the more, I think). I did go out to the car for some supplies from our first aid kit, since we had butterfly bandages and our hosts did not.

The guys had a lot of fun together this season, even if they had a VERY disappointing record this year. Grendel is ever social, so of course he has a bevy of new friends. Here is a picture of Grendel and his two doppelgangers. The three of them together are the top players on the team. But, considering their losing record for the season, the three of them joke that being the best players on the team is kind of like being "the tallest midget".

Whenever I try to take a picture of Grendel, he usually shies away or makes a very goofy face. Apparently, he hammed it up for the camera for other parents at the matches on a regular basis.

And finally, our intrepid team:

The latest parenting experiment

For several years before high school, K was interested in playing tennis on the high school team. He took group lessons a couple times a week. He attended a couple of summer tennis camps. He made friends with the high school tennis coach. He asked for tennis-related gifts. Then, after starting high school he lost interest. We dropped the private lessons last fall, but encouraged him to go out for the team in the spring any way.

Today, I ran into the high school tennis coach. He introduced himself and asked me why K had not come to the team's informational meeting a few days ago. I was surprised that there had been a meeting. But, I explained that K was going through a somewhat lazy phase right now. His school work is kind of erratic and he's not overly interested in anything. This is supposedly typical for high school freshmen, the coach informed me. I told him that I would talk to K about the team. He hoped that I would and said that K would probably be his strongest player if he decided to participate.

As I continued my workout, I hatched a plan that may help motivate K with his school work as well as encourage him to play tennis. In the fall, K tried to get us to agree to let him get a job. We said 'no' because we wanted him to really focus on the challenges of high school, at this point. Plus, I wanted to make sure he had the flexibility to play tennis in the spring. K is highly motivated by cash.

When I got home from the gym, I asked K why he had not gone to the informational meeting for tennis. He said that he had decided not to try out. I then told him what the coach had said about how valuable K would be to the team. He thought about it for a few minutes, and asked me when the next meeting/practice was. I told him and he said that he would go. I then made him an offer.

In that past, we have rewarded K for good report cards at the end of each quarter. Consequently, its a long time between payoffs for good effort. So, I decided to change the game a bit. If K plays on the tennis team and gets nothing worse than a C on any assignment in any given week (while maintaining an overall 'B' average) I offered him $20/week for his efforts, in addition to the $5/week base allowance he already gets. This got him VERY excited. He said that constant monetary incentive was a good motivator.

I pointed out that playing tennis would make it that much harder to maintain his grades. He concurred. I suggested that he would need to maximize the use of his free time by studying/doing homework after tennis while waiting for his ride home. He said that would work for most classes, but that he needs Internet access for his Civics class since he has to do a current events report every day. He then suggested that it would be helpful if we got a daily newspaper. Score! I liked the fact that he came up with his own reasonable solution to a challenge. So, I put in for a subscription to USA Today for the next 13 weeks, which coincides nearly directly with the end of the school year.

Wish us luck!

One door (may) close, while another one reopens

Last month, I posted about my son's plans to not play tennis any longer. He took lessons for several years with the goal of going out for the high school tennis team. Now, when he's in high school and a few months shy of going out for the team he's thinking about giving up on it.

Well, things changed slightly. His game improved after that announcement. So, he started vacillating on his decision. But, since he's still not sure how he feels about it, we were unwilling to continue to throw large amounts of money at tennis lessons. Then, an opportunity came up to play on a junior winter league. The money investment is less than half of the lesson fees, plus he'll get some structured competition experience. He's still unsure if he wants to go out for the team, so this will help him decide since the experience will be similar, if slightly less rigorous than the high school team schedule. Winter League matches are once a week, with no practices. The high school team has practices or matches Monday through Friday.

When K was in elementary school, he took guitar lessons for five years. He eventually gave that up when he (and we) got tired of the rigors of practicing and being nagged at by his parents to practice. In the last month or so, out of the blue, he started fiddling around with his guitar again.

When he stopped lessons, his instructor said to us that he might pick it back up again when he got to high school, since a lot of kids think that its cool to start their own band and the like. I think he hit that prediction spot on. K's church youth group puts on a 'coffee house' each February, featuring amateur performers from the church community. K really wants to participate (probably to impress his friends). So, he asked if he could go back to guitar lessons!

We made him think about it for several weeks. Plus, we watched that he was really getting back into enjoying playing his guitar. We really don't feel like reestablishing the practice-nagging routine we had going years ago.

So, here we are. Tomorrow is his last tennis lesson in almost three years. Monday evening K has his first guitar lesson in over three years. Winter Junior Team Tennis starts in the beginning of January.

Life is never boring with a teenager in the house.