If you want it, I want to

Mitch is playing Y-ball (basketball) for the first time this year...holy cow, it is the cutest thing ever! It seems like there are so many rules and skills to know to play basketball, not like soccer where the only rules they have are no hands and kick the ball in the goal. But they're actually better than I expected them to be. There's traveling and double-dribbling all over the place, but they have the basic concepts down of passing, shooting, rebounding, and defense. Last Saturday was the third game and the refs actually started calling double dribbling (at least the very obvious kind of dribbling the ball after you've picked it up to shoot or pass...the kids who dribble with two hands still get cut a lot of slack!). Anyway, Mitch is a solid player, but unfortunately isn't quite aggressive enough or tall enough to out-rebound his teammates, and of course kids who dribble up the court hardly ever pass and so Mitch ends up hardly ever touching the ball. It's kind of up to the coach to let the less dominant players get the ball when it's brought back in bounds, but if he's not paying enough attention...well, you know how it goes. Last game we noticed Mitch starting to tear up a couple of times because he never got the ball, could never quite get the rebounds, or could never quite convince his teammates to pass to him. Poor kid! I teared up just seeing him get sad! And then I started weighing the pros and cons of being the parent who tells the coach my kid needs more playing time out there! I mean, I know the coach is doing his best...but really, they're six, and right now it's all about making this a good experience for the kids, right? I'm afraid that if every game ends up like that, Mitch won't want to play basketball anymore. Which actually is fine with me I guess...I'd much rather him stick to soccer. Oh, the challenges of parenthood!!

And I just threw this picture in because they love shampoo hairdos...especially when they are way overdue for haircuts and they can make some pretty sweet mohawk action. Yes...they all still take baths together. Is that wrong? I can't seem to convince Mitch to take showers, and I'm not sure my temperament could handle them taking baths one at a time...it would take too long (they all still require me to do most of the work--at least Mitch and Luke insist on doing their own faces and privates)!! I'm all about expediting the bedtime process!