its not all gloom and doom.....

its a beautiful sunny day in mission, montana. the leaves have fallen off my trees and suppose i should pick them or bury the dog in them.... tomorrow the kid has a tournament in kalispell. for those of you who dont know, shes a high green belt in tae kwon do. whats left for her are the 2 degrees of the blue belt, the red belt then the black....thats pretty crazy to think my kid will become a black belt....anyway in her tournaments, she does forms and then sparring. shes come a long way in the two years since she started competing...i've had to tell her theres no crying in tae kwon do...sparring is against her general sweet natured sensibilities...shes not hot tempered and shes not mean so we've tried to figure out how to motivate her to get in there and really spar...several tournaments ago she got kicked in the shin so hard that she had a huge bruise for several weeks, shes got kicked in the elbow and the face...you cant tell her really go after the other girl (like a bad scene from karate kid) because she wont, you have to tell her to protect herself or she'll get all those bruises again especially now that she has braces. there've been a couple of times where she finally got pissed off because she was landing kicks and not getting points. at that moment i knew she was my kid....because being pissed off forced her to land them harder and faster. motivation comes in many forms...as long as she competes, i take her on little shopping trip after...i'm not above bribery...not to win but to get in the game and try. even if shes afraid or cranky or whatever. i let her pick when she started competing but now i dont let her stop. there are crazy parents there, like there are in every sport. yelling at their kids, making them cry...i hope those folks save up for therapy because thats gonna take some undoing...theres a couple of parents i'd like to spar.... so tomorrow we're off to the land of tae kwon do and then to our second favorite place, Borders!! and possibly IHOP..oh the wonders of the big city...