Sometimes I feel we’ve gotten a handle on this whole “being a parent” thing, and other times, I feel completely inadequate. For instance, who knew that in order to get your child enrolled in a fall Soccer program, that you had to register in May? Who knew?
With t-ball over for the summer, and with MLI having completed his swimming lessons, CareerMom and I have been looking for something for him to do with the cooler months coming on, both for him to get some exercise, and to get us outta the house to enjoy the cool air. But, it seems we’ve missed the boat on most team sports.
But one of MLI’s good friends takes Karate–or some form of martial arts, I’m not sure which–and MLI has mentioned wanting to take it on several occasions. I took American style Karate when I was younger, so I’m all for it, but CareerMom has been hesitant.
I’ve always tried to be careful and not steer my kids in a particular direction. The last thing I want to be is that dad who is trying to re-live his glory days through his kids, so I generally will only mention something to him and then try to explain the pros and cons about it without actually endorsing it.
We have a Taekwondo studio for kids very near to the house, so we took him over there last night for a little intro session and he seemed to really like it. They took him in a little room and had him do some punches and some kicks and come on…what little boy wouldn’t think that’s cool! And while they’ve got him doing that, they’ve got you filling out a form that basically enrolls you. Now, I’m not stupid…I know what’s going on, so I don’t fully fill out everything until after the class and only after CareerMom and I had conferred and decided to enroll him for a month to see if his enthusiasm remains even after having to endure 30-minute sessions of doing what the Sensei tells him to do, which probably is not a bunch of fun kicks and punches to start.
The price is significantly higher than I expected, but then, we didn’t shop around either. With our schedules, convenience is highly prized and local businesses know it and therefore charge accordingly. But the whole time MLI was doing his thing, MLE was watching and soaking it all up. And I know what’s gonna happen; in a few years MLE is going to want to be doing whatever sport his brother is doing and if that does still happen to be martial arts…well, let’s just say it’s a good thing daddy has decided not to play golf for a while.
Current Scorecard tally:
Parenting duties: 5
Selfish desires: 0
Postulates & Pastimes 
I have no fears about pushing my kid into the activities of my youth to relive my glory days– AWANA club and girl scouts. I can’t believe how many more opportunities there are for girl than there were back in my day. The makes me feel a little old, but very happy. I’ll probably have a secret leaning toward swimming though just because I like it so much. Taekwondo sounds like fun too…you’ll have to give updates on that.
BTW, that was a very funny response to my painting comment. Funny as in ‘very clever’, not funny as in ‘there’s no way you look like a Greek statue’.
RE: Well see, part of the danger for me is that I didn’t get to do these things when I was a kid. Oh, I played pee-wee football, and then two years of middle school baseball, but after the 7th grade, we moved and my folks quit
paying forletting me do this fun stuff. So, all these things I wanted to do, like Karate (which I took when I was out on my own) and other sports, I want to be careful and make sure I’m not pushing my kids to do.Course…if they ever turn into video game couch potatoes, then I’ll start pushing, but luckily, they’re usually more than willing. Last night, I was showing MLI some little kicks and MLE got off his trike and came over and started copying. I knew it would happen!