A week of woe

Oh boy what a week. It's like when I think things can't get any more difficult, life goes, here's a heaping pile of dog crap.  I will preface and say it can always get worse right, and these are just small speedbumps?  I did get four workouts in last week including 2 sets of leg work outs, 1 upper body, and one core.  It feels good to be back on track!

Andrew and Tony started out the week sick with low grade fevers and tummy troubles.  Tony was better in a couple of days and seem to not have many tummy issues.  Andrew's tummy turned to molten lava and pardon my imagery as he said he was peeing out of his butt.  Gross right?  He ended up missing three days of school, two tests, and I am not sure he will ever catch up.  He also missed getting to play football and had to be a water boy, which I was totally fine with since he was just then getting back to school.

I need to get this on paper so it's out of my head as I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  That was the point of this blog years and years ago actually, to just have some word vomit so that I could sleep at night.  This may be jumbled and all over the place but here it is, raw and just for my 5 readers LOL.  Deep breath.  Okay.  When you become a parent, you have this timeline of when and what should happen with your kid.  I blame the baby books, blogs, and Facebook groups but that's a topic for another time.  I still remember getting so mad at Andrew.  For example, all of the "other" kids were riding their bikes without training wheels.  We weren't.  Come on Andrew, take off your training wheels, you are ready.  Nope mom, not ready.  Every time we would go out, I would beg let's take them off you are ready.  Nope.  Not ready.  Then one day Andrew came to me and said, I'm ready to take the wheels off.  And we did, and he rode his bike from sunup to sundown without training wheels.  No help needed.  He was ready.  When we started racing, same thing. PASS THE CARS.  Nope, not ready. Come on, you have a super-fast car, you can do it.  Nope, not ready.  We would see glimpses.  We had to change our thinking, our tone, our words and our expectations.  We started praising little things, making small goals that were attainable for him.  And we saw it, under the surface.  It was there.  Waiting for when he was ready.  Again, we watched kids his age or younger becoming super stars, winning every race, or going to national races and kicking butt.  We wanted that too, but he wasn't ready.  Then slowly, surely, he started passing.  He started caring about winning.  That passion slowly came out of him and made him want to win, wanted to take a chance and to pass.  Now we are here with dirt racing.  We have begged and pleaded for years, just try a dirt car, just get in one.  Nope, not ready.  We want to race with our friends who have left QM to go to micros.  Nope, not ready.  Sigh.  Two weeks ago, he got in his first dirt car, made his first laps, used the clutch and gears for the first time.  AND HE LOVED IT.  And we did round two this week and I had tears.  I type all of this to say, if your kid is like my kid, doesn't' follow the "timeline" that either you yourself put out there or what society puts out there, don't sweat it.  Set small attainable goals and make it about the journey and not the outcome.  And hey, maybe they won't get there, and they will find something else.  BUT enjoy the journey wherever it takes you and whomever it takes you to and with.  

Again, as stated above, we headed to the dirt track to turn some laps in one of our sponsored driver's cars.  He again went above and beyond and got Andrew strapped in for some laps.  We honestly can't thank Bo enough for letting Andrew do this.  It has really given Andrew big confidence and has sparked a love for dirt cars that we had hoped for, for honestly years.  WE still have a long way to go and a lot of money to figure out as we transition from quarter midgets to one dirt car (now accepting any financial support in the way of sponsorship :) and buy our QM stuff people!

I will end on this.  if you know me, truly know me, you know that I give 110 percent every day all day to my job, my family, and my kid's hobbies.  I have worked tirelessly to make sure that our local club has been my number one priority, and I've let my mental health suffer at times for the sake of the club.  We had some problems last week and the blame was put solely on me and my tower.  It hurts because what happened effected a child in my own child's class and I've been accused of cheating.  I know this too shall pass but it stings to be yelled at, to be essentially blamed, and to be thrown under the bus.  This is NOT the way I wanted to end our final year in quarter midgets and I'm just sick to my stomach over all of this.  This year has been so tough with multiple people committing to positions and then quitting and then me not even being on the board but having to pick up the slack, so nothing changes for these kids.  They had their reasons for quitting and part of me admires the ability to walk away.  The other part is super sad for not getting that year off I needed to just enjoy this last hurrah.  Oh well, one more month and we are truly done.  I will still be around to help the new board and to cheer on these kids and help as I have time to help.  I'm super excited about the new board coming on and the potential for several amazing people to step up and become president.   My true hope is that people can move past this whole incident and truly see that it's about the kids and the safety of the kids and that all volunteers included want nothing more than for the kids to be safe and not get hurt.  

Sorry for the book this week!  I've got a lot on my mind, and I needed to get it out! See y'all next week!