It has been a long year of hard work for both of my kids in pursuing their passions, but they are each about to pursue the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
PONY Thunder
The passion that drives my oldest son is baseball and his pot of gold is the PONY baseball playoffs, which will begin this weekend. His team, modeled after the Trenton Thunder Minor League Baseball team, will be ranked as either the #2 or #3 seed depending on the outcome of the final game on Saturday.
Throughout the season, he has been a fixture behind the plate as one of the few kids that enjoy playing catcher. With a fair share of foul balls off of the mask and chest pad, and even an errant bat off of the elbow (ouch!), all of the hard work and pain is about to be forgotten as these kids enter the post-season.
As a dad, I have had the pleasure of numerous proud moments on the baseball field this season – including when he hit his first triple and throwing out two baserunners, one at third base and one at first that had taken a large lead.
But what I am most proud about is how he has worked hard on and off the field to improve his skills, supported his teammates throughout the season, and had fun.
Good luck in the playoffs Thunder!
Storm Dance Alliance
After trying baseball and coming away unimpressed, my youngest son found his passion in the dance studio as a member of the Storm Dance Alliance Hip-Hop Company. This coming week he will be in hot pursuit of his pot of gold in the form of the National Finals Dance Competition being held in the Wisconsin Dells.
The schedule has been grueling with more than a few 10-12 hour days at the dance studio and having to miss out on fun with his friends for extra practice sessions. All of the previous practices and competitions have provided the opportunity to fine-tune each dance in preparation for this moment, as he is now about to step out on the largest stage.
The dance studio has provided me just as many proud moments as a dad, whether it be his insanely long handstands or his latest trick of doing a headstand and pushing himself up into a handstand (go ahead and try it, it will humble you).
What makes me the most proud though is how he has overcome the fear of stepping out on a stage in front of hundreds of people to perform, ignoring the criticism from friends, and having fun doing something he loves.
Good luck at Nationals Storm!
The one bad thing…
As the kids embark on this journey to the pinnacle of their respective passion, the one bad thing is that the PONY playoffs and National Finals are scheduled for the exact same week.
That means a divided family between the baseball fields and the dance stage, so I am sure the text messages will be flying back and forth as we keep each other updated. Fortunately we both have nice new phones, otherwise we would have had to take a stab at winning Steve’s free iPhone 3GS contest (now how is that for a contest plug Steve?).
JB and G*Slick, I am extremely proud of you both!
(And no, we could not have planned it any better if we tried to have one son at Storm dance and the other on Thunder baseball. LoL!)
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Best of luck to both of your sons. I’m really looking forward to seeing what passions my son or daughter will have.
Thanks! It is certainly interesting as a parent to see what drives your children and then do everything you can to foster that interest and help them do their best.
you’re a good dad. all the best
Ah, very nice. Glad to see major progress on both!
Kelvin Kao´s last blog ..Just Saw Myself On TV
Thanks Kelvin! It has been an exciting couple of weeks for sure.
Best of luck to both your sons. They grow up so fast don’t they?
It’s always good to see someone taking his time to support their kids in whatever field they want to excel in.
Go JB and G*Slick, make your dad proud.
Thanks Terry! The fact that both of my boys worked so hard and tried their best already made me extremely proud; the fact that they both performed so well was icing on the cake.
Wow. This post made me miss baseball so much.
Best of luck to both your sons!
Thanks Mike!
Best of luck to both your sons.
Thanks Jeremy!
Cool team logos. Hopefully you’ll have them saved in 10 years when they write a blog of memories.
Damien´s last blog ..Blog Stats June 2009
It will be interesting to see how they capture and share their memories down the road, but I do hope that my capturing them here will offer them a place to look back to at some point.
Good luck kids…..kinda reminds me of Billy Elliot!
Thanks Steve!
Update: Last night JB and his team won the PONY league championship, knocking off the top playoff seed 13-7! It was a fantastic game and the entire team played well, as they had done in winning their last 10 games in a row. Congrats to the Thunder!
The previous week, G-Slick cleaned up at the dance competition with a 1st overall (out of 800+ dances) and two 4th place overall finishes. These kids worked so hard all year and to see them kill it on the big stage was unbelievable. Congrats Storm!
Fantastic work guys, must be sooooo proud!
I’ll pass it along to them, and yes I am extremely proud of them.
Today we had a nice little surprise of seeing both boys pictured in the local newspaper for their respective team / studio doing so well in competition.
And this Saturday G*Slick gets to perform one of his dances at a Special Olympics charity event in a nearby town, so that will be fun too.
What kind of dance does your son do?
He is primarily been doing hip-hop dance, although he has also taken jazz and tried tap but didn’t click with his teacher.
Congratulations to both of your sons. They are very fortunate to have a Dad who appreciates and supports them regardless of their interests. So many push their kids to excel at whatever THEY want them to do instead of letting them follow their own dreams.
Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..How Much Is A Memorable Logo Worth?
Not to leave a completely random comment or anything, but has your blog been down for a while or something, the last few days i was trying to look at it, it wouldn’t pull up.
On a not so random note, does your son watch so you think you can dance?
By any chance are you in the Chicago area? And using Comcast?
For the last two weeks I have not been able to access any of my sites on a particular server as the connection was traveling a path that was getting blocked on a hop to a Bell Canada server in Calgary.
Most people were not impacted; however, anyone following that same server hop was getting blocked. It has been resolved, at least for the time being, and I am now asking my host to assist with investigating the reported cause of the traffic being blocked.
Now, back to the other question, he has watched the show a few times but it isn’t one we watch regularly. He was far more into the show on MTV when his one instructor was on the show.
I love the blog layout design, cool graphic and unique
Ah, very nice. Glad to see major progress on both!What kind of dance does your son do?
Heh… the job of being a parent…. In the comment you said the instructor was on an mtv show, may I ask what show it was?
His teacher was on the MTV show America’s Next Best Dance Crew and their crew was Xtreme Dance Force from Illinois.
“Job” of a parent. I suppose, that word isnt appropriate here.. I mean, the words just show the love n care from within. Nice post, Derek.
Been getting lots of tips abt child care frm blogs as this. Post a few more refreshing posts as this, Derek!
Life really becomes exciting after becoming a dad
Wish your kids all the best with their baseball team
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Storm and Thunder are the team names? That is a great and funny coincidence.
I’m glad to read about their successes. I’m sure you’re very proud of them.