<p>Great to hear of kids doing so well, and kids coming home!</p>
<p>I was all thinking I wasn’t going to get emotional about Fang Jr’s situation. Hah. I’ve spent the day oscillating between anger and tears, not helped by our phone being taken out by the storms and the washer overflowing.</p>
<p>CF - I’ve been thinking about you (and Jr. and H). It would have been pretty surprising if you didn’t feel anger and sadness. You have experienced a loss, and it will take some time to come to grips with that.</p>
<p>Gosh CF–literally raining and pouring! You have every right to be awash in feelings (literally and figuratively). Somehow I think you will all come through the storm but it is no fun being in the process. Hang in there. You are a great parent and your boy will find his way. Development takes time and often on a non-linear path!</p>
<p>Geez, CF, feel so badly for you and your S and family are going through but hope it’s a bump (albeit a bump the size of Mt. Kilamajaro) in his future, not a total redirection. Hugs to you and yours.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang…we’re here for you. Take your time. {{{HUGS}}}</p>
<p>cpeltz…nice to “see” you!</p>
<p>D2 finished a job application, resume and cover letter last night! Planning on hand delivering it today. Hooray! Baby steps! She returns to school this weekend. Of course the weather is changing and calling for snow. Just something else to worry about!</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, has Fang, Jr. wanted to talk about what happened at school?</p>
<p>On a lighter note then some: D called and wanted us to ship her skis/ski boots/ski poles. Now I asked her in the fall if she wanted to pack and take these and she said that she wouldn’t be skiing. Well they went last weekend and she rented. Figures she is going again this weekend and more so we have now shipped the stuff to her. Two times skiing will pay for the shipping but why didn’t she believe me in the first place? I grew up in Maine. I know the ski slopes; I knew that there isn’t that much to do in the winter and she would want to get out. ARGGGGGH!!!</p>
<p>Since I took the thread in a very girly direction yesterday with all the cheer talk, I thought I’d comment on boys today.</p>
<p>This morning I went into Son’s room and put a large stack of t-shirts in his drawer. This is how he packed to return to school:</p>
<p>Looks at stack of t-shirts. Counts out the first 10. Packs them. Leaves rest at home.</p>
<p>Can you imagine a *girl *choosing her college wardrobe that way? Not!</p>
<p>No… a girl would PACK everything, including the things she hadn’t worn in a year! I did try to watch the cheer video, but it’s marked private. I wasn’t aware they even did such a thing.</p>
<p>Rochestermom - son didn’t own skis since we typically only skied out west and always rented demos, which if you’re only skiing once or at most twice a year works out well in terms of using great stuff. Also, he has the same exact shoe size as my FIL and he has AWESOME stuff. Anyway… we found a place that would lease him stuff for this season and it seems to be working out OK, he can ascertain his level and will probably end up buying something in the post season for next year.</p>
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<p>After some parent posted it, the gym was probably horrified and had them mark it private. But if you search ACA Cheer you could probably find similar routines from past years.</p>
<p>I’ve watched several from different teams… and those flyers are pretty amazing. But I don’t think it’s going on a limb to say that the crop top is not a good look for everyone and it’s probably a good thing for some of those girls that act as bases to NOT be wearing them. While it is much better than in my day when everyone was a specific body type, but not recognizing this in the uniform is a little harsh. I can only imagine if I was told I had to wear a crop top today.</p>
<p>And as I recover from my fit of laughter just in imagining it… </p>
<p>The most impressive thing to me is the timing. Once you get passed that everyone should be able to do cartwheels, back hand springs, etc., it’s all about the timing. One second deviation could mean someone comes crashing down on their head, OUCH!</p>
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<p>I totally agree. That’s why even the awesome Level 5 International teams that are full of young adults who can tumble like nobody’s business still bust their stunts on occasion. If the timing isn’t perfect, it all comes crashing down.</p>
<p>At the last practice before the competiton, two girls tumbled into each other, landing in a pile with one on the other’s head. I was sitting really close to them and could see their shocked looks, like they wanted to cry…but the next stunt was coming up so they got up quickly and ran to where they were supposed to be on the floor. All that has to teach a girl something, right?</p>
<p>S1 arrived but almost didn’t make it out of the country. It turns out he overstayed his Visa by a few weeks and almost missed his plane while arguing the point, not that he had much of an argument. He seemed to believe the Visa lady couldn’t count, telling her vehemently that he had stayed only the seven months his Visa allowed. I pointed out when he called me from DC that he was actually in Brazil eight months and he was the one who couldn’t count, not the Visa lady. Whoops. Luckily, the plane was delayed and they just put him on it rather than giving him a fine. It was almost two hours late landing in DC, which happened to be lucky because H was more than an hour late getting to the airport due to traffic (which I had warned him about). S1 missed his class this morning (as I also predicted), but he had sent the prof an email and isn’t too worried. Those two won’t die of a heart attack, but I might just in worrying on their behalf.</p>
<p>But how nice that he could argue with the visa lady with the conviction that he was right!</p>
<p>missypie, I’m sure that’s why he ended up not getting a fine. Instead of being meek and apologetic or confused, I can see him looking like a typical hot-headed South American outraged at the supposed injustice and false accusation. He probably did think they were just trying to get money from him because he is an American. There is a fair amount of corruption in Brazil. His Portuguese is very rapid and fluent at this point, which no doubt also helped.</p>
<p>I don’t remember why this was, but when I went back to school in my late 20’s, in order to get into a specific college I had be “proficient” in a language and I had not taken any foreign language in HS. The only way I could get out of 6 classes of spanish, french or german was to take a language not typically offered in HS. Like I said, this was a long time ago and I don’t recall all the details (I also had a two year old at the time). Long story short, I took a summer of portuguese and was pretty darn good until about the following november when it all went into vapor. </p>
<p>My D16 takes chinese. Truly, that language amazes me and when we went to parent/teacher conferences she and her teacher (native speaker) were talking a blue streak. I was seriously impressed. Frankly, it all sounds greek to me. :)</p>
<p>Missy - it teaches resilience. That’s the first word that comes to my mind although I am sure there are plenty others. But almost all studies point to this one trait as being hugely important in later success. And this says nothing of stamina. Would I like the red glitter eye shadow? Probs not. But I wasn’t a huge fan of decorative eye black either.</p>
<p>An '09/'13 from our church has passed away from alcohol poisoning. </p>
<p>So no matter what phone calls we’ve all received over the past month that have made our stomachs drop, I’d say we’re all in fantastic shape.</p>
<p>Oh Missy, that is tragic. I will keep that child’s family in my thoughts.</p>
<p>Oh my Missy… what a year your little hamlet has been having!! So so sad. That kind of avoidable heartbreak is just crushing.</p>
<p>And yes, I’d say we were in fantastic shape and now I will knock on wood in a very big way so it will continue to be that way.</p>
<p>I was just reading that thread about what really goes on during frat pledging, how they’ll say no alcohol is involved but that it’s always so secretive. I have no idea of the particulars of this child’s death, but I’m so glad Son doesn’t want to pledge.</p>