I was able to catch the last few minutes of Elizabeth’s game, and then the entirety of Eden’s game on Tuesday.  It was fun to watch.  Both teams played against Park.  And a handful of girls from the A team stuck around after their game to watch the B team play.  I love the school spirit and sense of pride that I am seeing in the girls with their school.  And the parents of the girls from the A team were into the B team’s game as well.  It is refreshing to see this pride in school.  I am happy to be a part of it.

Eden is a 5th grader on the middle school team.  The team is made up of 5th, 6th and 7th graders.

Her coach is putting a lot of confidence in Eden, as I noticed Eden takes a lot of the free hits, inserts, and also is the ‘fly’.  The fly is the defensive player that challenges the ball when the opposing team has a penalty corner.  Eden is the smallest player on the team.  She played pretty well.  As a critical parent, I think she could have hustled more, and think she hustled more in their first game.  But, I love watching her play.  And I made sure to tell her so after the game.

In the final minute or two of play, they were down by a goal.  Eden took a penalty corner.  After she inserted, the ball came back to her.  She dribbled towards the goal, shot, and scored.  It was very exciting!  It was the team’s first goal of the season, and Eden’s first goal as a Gator.  Very cool stuff, and I am glad that Eden got to enjoy the feeling!

I watched this morning a Ted Talk by Joe Ehrmann, entitled, “How to be a man.”  The message was simple.  It was about rewiring the meaning of the phrase, “Be a Man.”  Joe preaches that masculinity should be defined in terms of relationships and commitment to a cause.

I have read Mr. Ehrmann’s book, InSide Out Coaching, and it helped me to formulate and refine my own coaching philosophy and approaches to coaching. I have counted Joe Ehrmann amongst the coaches that I have learned a great deal from over the years.  I have been most impressed with Mike Krzyzewski, John Wooden, and Joe Ehrmann.  They have gotten to the essence of coaching and leading.  And they demonstrate the importance of qualities like trust, communication, collective responsibility, loyalty, caring, industriousness, and enthusiasm.  They talk about leading with the heart and exercising judgment rather than setting and following rules.  I admire most about Joe Ehrmann and his book is that he provides a skeleton of a blueprint for being a coach, which is to say that he tells the audience to reflect on their past experiences in order to develop a coaching philosophy of their own.

It is the self-reflection and character-building traits that draw me to these three men.  It is especially the character-building and the lessons that we can impart to our players and our children.  There are several causes to be committed to in life.  For me, I have felt compelled to coaching over the last few years.  And the burning reason for this calling is the ability to impart wisdom, to build character, to help others develop self-esteem and self-confidence, and to be a positive role model.  In short, I am called to make a difference, to make my mark.  And I believe the best way for me to do so is through teaching.

Grandpop and Aunt Mary

I look up to my father, and I look up to my grandfather.  I think they both are profound examples in my life.  I often reflect on my grandfather.  He was, of course, a man.  And I am certain that he had faults.  I don’t want to idolize him.  But I have certainly put him on a pedestal.  I do believe he was great.  When Joe Ehrmann spoke of deathbeds in his Ted Talk, I thought about my grandfather, and his funeral.  I thought about the hundreds of cars in the procession, and of the many people that introduced themselves to me and talked about the profound impact my grandfather had on their lives.  He was a man for others.  I find him to be the model of a man, and I am grateful to have known someone who I can always compare myself to, and strive towards.  And I am happy to hear Joe Ehrmann’s talk about being a man, and that it is consistent with the way in which I believe my grandfather lived and the lessons he imparted to his children, and to so many children that were educated by him at Loyola Blakefield.

My father, 2005 at the Gait Cup

I know that my father strives to be like his father as well.  And he has helped so many people in his lifetime.  He has done so to a fault to himself and to my mom.  He has worked tirelessly over the years helping kids, helping the community, providing people hope; I don’t want to recount all of his efforts, but they are many – varied and vast.  And I know about a lot of them, and what motivates my father.  He is another model of a man.  He has chosen a different path than his father, but not so different.  He is a coach, which is very much akin to a teacher.

I have 3 sons.  3 sons that I want to remain sensitive.  I want them to have empathy and express their feelings.  I want them to think about how their actions affect others.  I want them to understand love.  And I want them to treat others with the respect that they want for themselves.  And so I want the message that Joe Ehrmann preaches to be heard loud and clear.  And I hope he is a catalyst for change.  At the very least, he is a catalyst for change in me, and he provides me with another blueprint that I can use to structure my lessons with my children: masculinity is about relationships and commitment to a cause.

Thank you, Mr. Ehrmann, for the wonderful talk.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Marcia and I attended the One Love Foundation fundraising event last night at the B&O Railroad Museum.  Our lacrosse club was one of the event’s sponsors.  It was a great event to raise money and awareness for an important cause.  I am a father of 6 children.  I am a father of 3 girls.  This foundation will raise awareness over time of relationship violence.  I try to teach my daughters how they should expect to be treated, what is right and what is wrong.  I am glad for this foundation and the strong women involved.  And I will look for ways in the future to support the cause.

They threw an elegant event last night at the B&O Museum.  Being inside the building, I had vivid memories of being there in my youth, but I cannot remember the occasion.  I will have to find out from my mother why I was ever there in my youth, but I am certain that I was there.

My new nickname, thanks to Juicebox.4. How did I earn said nickname? Foolishly.

On Sunday, I was quickly rolling a second coat onto the walls of the living room before I had to go to coach a field hockey game. The room was a mess, and I could not maneuver the ladder amongst the toys and dirty laundry. So, I found myself standing instead on furniture. I broke the television stand under my weight, but I kept on going.

I was almost done. Marcia called. She was on her way home and told me I didn’t have time to paint. I climbed up on a kitchen chair, determined to finish the job, still on the phone. I was rolling near the window, last couple spots to finish up. All of a sudden, the chair spun beneath me.

I lost my balance, but gripped the phone and the paint roller, and braced for impact. My elbow went through a framed picture of the family, back against the painted wall, and then fell hard to the floor right on my back. I was surrounded by glass, and told Marcia I couldn’t talk, but to get home, and I handed the phone to Eden. She started screaming and I realized that my arm was just dripping blood into a puddle on the floor. Noah grabbed me a role of paper towels, and we called my dad for help, as I needed a ride to get stitches.

As I was keeping the kids from the glass and holding the paper towel to my arm, Noah calmly told me that he was going to get his shoes on so that he could clean up the glass. And he did exactly that. And he was calm amidst what could have been a storm.

Patient First. 8 stitches. The first stitches of my life (besides those related to surgeries). I was back to coaching that night, helping Marcia run the field hockey clinic. And haven’t taken a night off since. 4 days later, and no infection yet. Hasn’t completely stopped bleeding and pussing. But it should heal completely in the next few days, and I know Marcia is itching to remove the stitches.

Hard to believe that these are my first injury-related stitches, and I am 37 years old.

Not to be confused with Katniss.  There is a beautiful little stray cat that has been hanging around our back porch the last few days.  The rest of the family has become attached to it very quickly.  Eden has named it Peanut, and she is especially attached.  And it appears to be attached to her and the sound of her voice.

At night, the cat hides on our roof, outside of my bedroom window.  Sometimes, it hides on the roof of the garage.  But when Eden says, “Here Kitty Kitty”, it appears immediately at the back door.  Eden has been feeding it.  Marcia bought it a collar.  And the boys are telling me that they want to keep the kitten.  It is a very pretty animal, and appears to be rather docile.

Look what appeared at my back door

Tomorrow, Marcia is taking it to the vet. Truth be told, we can’t afford to keep hermit crabs as pets, let alone a cat. But, I am a bystander watching these little blue eyes capture my family. Who knows. One day, they may even capture me.

I have decided not to fight on this one. If the cat makes Marcia and the kids happy, I will welcome it into or lives.

On my recent trip to Canada, I spent many hours on the Queen Elizabeth’s Way, or QEW, for short.  It is a long highway, stretching throughout Ontario, and part of many of our day trips through Canada.  On the QEW, there are several interchanges, sections of the road where the highway expands to 6 or 8 lanes, and then quickly back to 3 or 4 with 2 lanes exiting.  Exits come up pretty quickly, and it is easy to miss your exit and just keep going.  Chances are, you can still arrive at your destination, it just may take longer or be a lot more frustrating and hopeless.

I find myself recently at a crossroads, much like the many interchanges on the QEW.  Many paths to choose.  I can keep moving forward along the path I have been traveling for miles.  Or I can veer off to an exciting new highway, the 407.  The 407 is fast, it is a smooth ride with no traffic, and I enjoy driving it.  I am fulfilled when I drive this highway and reach my destination quickly.  But it is a strange toll road, and I don’t know if I will get in trouble because I don’t have Ontario license plates.  I know the QEW.  It may be filled with traffic, and my navigator may get frustrated because we will be late for our game.  But I know the path and where it leads.  Although the GPS is telling me I could save 13 minutes, I stay the course, and indecision takes over.  I plod along.

I have worked for years at a career.  And it has been very challenging and fruitful.  And I support my family.  But my current job is not treating me very well.  I am sitting in traffic.  There is traffic ahead and to either side.  I am intrigued by the many interchanges.  In this case, the GPS isn’t telling me what’s up.  It could be a dead end or take me in the wrong direction.  My navigator, my copilot, is holding my hand.  But she doesn’t know which way will get us there.  Already we are running late, and no money for gas.  But she trusts me.  And she knows that I am smart and I can get us there.  I am a lucky man to have someone believe in me.

But what path to choose.  I have missed a couple interchanges.  I tried to get over, and in some cases, almost made it.  But boxed in so far.  I am coming up on another exit.  This could be it.  I put my blinker on, and I am going to make my move.  Wish me luck…

Eden and Liz now go to school together at St. Paul’s School for Girls.  I was wondering how they would get along.  Their personalities are rather different.  I have been astonished and so proud as a parent to watch them interact on the way to and from school.  They are becoming better friends and sisters than they ever have been in the past.  I am certain it won’t last forever, so I want to capture just how special it has been the first few weeks of school.

Elizabeth is so supportive of her little sister.  She helps her study on the way to school.  She drills her on Spanish words and phrases.  After Eden’s first field hockey tryout, Liz was very encouraging with her, telling her how well she did.  And they were talking about how they were helping each other out on the field during a knockout game.  Eden got really pissed at an 8th grader who said something nasty about Liz.

Some days when I arrive to pick them up, they don’t see me right away.  And I get to watch them laughing and playing in front of the school.  They hang around with each other and with each other’s friends.  Eden sometimes brings me a cup of cold water to the car when she gets in, because she thinks I might be thirsty.  We listen to ‘Smarter than Regan’ in the morning sometimes together.

When the girls were trying out for field hockey, Liz was encouraging Eden that she might make the A team.  It turns out they made the teams by grade.  And Liz was pretty upset because Eden is on the B team.  But nonetheless, they support each other.

The other day, we were running kind of late.  They were only going to have about 5 minutes to get to morning prayers.  Eden was very nervous because they usually have about 15 minutes.  Liz told her how to organize her stuff in the car so that she could run to her locker, drop the stuff that she didn’t need, and already have out separate the stuff she needed to take with her.  She helped Edie through it.

They talk about each other’s days and what they bought for lunch.  And they ask each other about their school work.  Eden tells Liz that she should run for class president.  There will be many times when these two will fight or be jealous of each other.  For the moment, I am witnessing loving, caring and supportive sisters.  I am proud of my little Gators.

You’re a ding dong!  No, YOU’re a ding dong!

This is the fun game we are having with Jack lately.  He likes to call everyone ding dongs, and then he cracks up laughing.  It is so cute.  He loves to make his parents and his siblings laugh.  I think he is the first of our children that has been inclined to make everybody laugh.

http://youtu.be/wuQ4NHdaTjc