Do I Know These Kids?

As you can see, the Team Sabo dress-up bin is loaded for bear, full of sartorial splendor and outfits for any make and model of child. Take, for example, this bottom photo of a boy we'll call "Abram." At least I know him as Abram. When he's not a cross between Jack Sparrow and a Jedi warrior. We can certainly appreciate the imagination that goes along with donning, in Abram's case, random clothes and paraphernalia and murses and pulling it off. At least I guess he pulls it off. What's important is that Abram thinks he's pulling it off and seems pretty intent on conquering Courthouse Square or whatever adventure he's going to tackle. At least he's dressed for success. We also note that Madeline really pulls off that white dress look, eh?

It's Only June, Right?

Last night I had a nightmare. It was a very vivid dream. I dreamed that it was the end of September, the mornings were crisp, cool weather was in my future ... it was awful. I remember thinking, `Wait, I haven't had summer!' I want to sweat! I haven't enjoyed my little garden! I haven't barbecued ribs in the blazing heat while sweating profusely! The torture of reliving my dream is almost too much to write about ... what would it like to be without summer? Oh, that's right. I'd live in my hometown of Bend. Didn't it snow there last week? Eeech. So I woke up this morning and hustled out to the kitchen where I took a good long look at the calendar and to my pleasant surprise discovered it's still only June 7th. I have plenty of time to drop 5 lbs. sweating through a rib barbecue. The Wiffle ball season is still young so I have time to drop my ERA below the price of a steak dinner. The little cantaloupe plants abloom in my raised bed will grow luscious little melon treats. Oh, the joy of it!

I snapped a couple of photos of our little raised bed garden back on June 3rd and I'll update the progress through the summer. As you can see, things are looking good, as Olivia will attest with her delightful little garden smile. Last night we had one of those Virginia rainstorms complete with falling tree limbs -- Julie and I were out to dinner with some friends and saw an entire beech tree drop across the street in a vacant lot -- and surely an inch of rain or so. The garden appreciates the rain. We should be eating green beans by the end of the week so we're excited about that. I'm sure my dad's green beans in Bend, Ore., are about ready as well. Oh, wait. Today it's supposed to be slightly warmer in Bend than Anchorage, Alaska. The beans may have to wait. Was it last year my sister's garden in Bend got frosted out on June 20th? Sheesh. Where's global warming when you need it, right Sis?

Yes, We're Still Blogging

It came to our attention that it has been like 5 weeks since we filed a blog post. We apologize. So for our friends out in Oregon, we interrupt the constant rains to bring you up to date on the Sabo family with some random recent photos. As you can see from the photo right up there, it's sunny, warm and the pool is open here in Virginia. Taylor is working on his tan, as are his sisters, so you won't have to wear shades to look at our handy dandy blog. Fortunately it's been so warm lately -- upper 80s, chance of thunderstorms again today -- that it shouldn't take long for Taylor to look a lot less white and you can put the shades away when perusing the 12 kids blog. In gardening news, we're a couple of weeks from harvesting our first batch of green beans from the raised bed in the back yard and the peas have been tasty. The tomatoes are stretching out nicely and we're looking forward to some heirlooms here in a month or two & for some tasty salsa. I can spy little bell peppers on the pepper plants so that's very encouraging. We apologize for lack of news on the blog. We have been extraordinarily busy here at Team Sabo headquarters. May was an absolute blur and I was alarmed to learn it's already June. We had 3 birthdays in May -- Brenton and Madeline on May 1 and Claire on May 17 -- and Taylor hit 18 on April 29. For his birthday he decided to take the whole family bowling. Showing what a hospitable, kind husband I am, I let my beautiful wife beat me in bowling. What a wonderful husband I am! (Editor's note: If I remember correctly, I caught you clapping when I bowled a gutter ball. How is that wonderful? Author's reply: Well, um, my love, I think actually I was, well, technically I wasn't clapping in the sense of applauding a sudden downturn in your bowling fortunes. It was actually a form of encouragement in the sense of trying to encourage you to overcome this sudden little blip in your bowling success because clearly you're a tremendous natural bowler with extraordinary bowling talent. My love.)

Anyway, Taylor prevailed in the bowling tournament although Eli had a nice showing, even if he had the bumpers. (Editor's note: Which you could have used. Author's reply: Cheap shot! I'll have you know I beat Ezra!) For Claire's birthday she decided to have a slumber party and invited something like 9 of her friends to spend the night. I had to get a permit from the county to operate my house as a hotel for the night because we surpassed the local housing capacity ordinances. I'm telling you, things can get crazy around here. On Memorial Day the whole family except for Claire went to Busch Gardens to ride roller coasters and such. It was in the low 90s, as humid as a sauna ... sounds like fun, eh? The kids had a blast and I kept my lunch down so all in all it was a grand day. Basically, we survived. We took 10 kids and came home with 10 kids and had only a couple of relatively minor fits from tired little kids to deal with in the closing minutes of our time at Busch Gardens. Finally, in closing, we pledge to write more blog posts.

"Daddy Say 'K"

This is Olivia, as you may be able to tell from the photo. As you can see, she likes chocolate. She's trying to smile while mowing on a beater lathered up in some sort of chocolate concoction. She is very 2ish, with all the baggage that goes with being a post-toddler child thinking the world is theirs for the taking and that whatever her long-lashed eyes spy is, in her words, "mine." This morning she bit Eli, I immediately caught wind of it and Olivia was soon made to understand this doesn't qualify as playing nicely. She refused to say, "Sorry" to Eli, (Hmmmm Eli, where do you think she learned that?) but after some not so gentle encouragement eventually ponied up with the word of apology. She also is understanding the art of deception. Or maybe it's lying, but I'm not really sure if her newly minted 2-year-old mind understands that concept. You see, yesterday I was downstairs working on a story and she was upstairs with Claire and some other kids. My office is right at the foot of the stairs so I can hear everything going on up there -- for better and worse. (For example, today the little boys and Olivia were upstairs playing when they decided they didn't want to play Ezra's game and walked out of his bedroom. "Well," Ezra said very loudly, "everyone is stupid." That qualified him for some behavioral reformation remediation efforts.) Anyway, Olivia is who we're talking about. So I hear Olivia ask Claire if she can watch a movie and from the sound of things she's holding a DVD.

Claire: "Go ask Daddy."

Olivia: (Walking to the top of the stairs) "Dada, can I watch movie?"

Before I can answer, Olivia turns around to Claire.

Olivia: "Daddy say 'k."

Then I hear Claire laugh. I have to admit, I found it amusing as well. I can only shake my head and think I have my work cut out for me already. Kids are fascinating creatures. She's learned to put words in my mouth at 2 years old. This could get interesting.

Another Ezra-ism

Some people have uncanny abilities to do great things. Like the woman who holds the world record for bearing children. In the 18th century in Russia, Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev birthed 69 children. That is not a typo. That's 69 children...from the womb of one woman. Talk about a fertile Myrtle. Sheesh. Imagine the blogging that woman could have done, calling it "Sixty-nine kids ... and counting?" So Mrs. Vassilyev had 27 pregnancies, birthing 16 sets of doubles, seven sets of triples and four sets of quads. An impressive feat, no doubt and something that qualifies as an uncanny ability to do great things. Imagine family reunions in the Vassilyev clan. Christmas must have been a hoot. Or something like that.

Anyway, enough about Mrs. Vassilyev. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. We're here to talk about Ezra and the uncanny verbal greatness about him. It's something that comes naturally. You can't teach it. He's a child prodigy of the spoken word. Among his more infamous utterances include the time he shut the door during a thunderstorm: "Don't let the thunder in!" he said. Or his defiant statement when he's making a point: "That's just how it be's!" His latest gem of the tongue came the other morning when he and his younger brothers and sisters were outside riding bikes. Ezra hopped on his trike, but lo and behold the seat was wet. Whe he got back up and ran around a bit he stopped and scrunched up his face. "Hey," he said in his wet britches, "someone peed in my pants."

Isn't It Just A Game?

The 15- and 16-year-old boys on the Gloucester High School junior varsity baseball team filed off the bus single file toting their baseball mitts, bats and bags with their heads down. They hardly said a word to each other. Julie and I were sitting in the van waiting to pick up Ethan watching them walk to the Gloucester High School locker room. "Look at them," I said quietly. "You would think they lost." The JV Dukes had traveled to Newport News to face Woodside's team and prevailed 6-2. It wasn't necessarily a pretty win. Mistakes were made but Gloucester did plenty of things right as well, obviously. You would never know it from the coach, however. After the game I was chatting behind the dugout with a couple of other fathers after the game when the coach walked nearby. "I hope they get some TLC from you all," he said. "Because they're not getting it from me."

Ethan and the rest of the team played a solid game overall. Good pitching, some timely hitting, some plays were made when it counted. The kids came through. Ethan batted leadoff and went 1 for 2 with a double and RBI. But he also reached base on an error, drew two walks and stole three bases, though he did get thrown out once on what I would say was a disputed call at second base. In the field he played third base and fielded two grounders, throwing guys out at first base both times. He also had one error when he threw a ball into centerfield and another inexplicable play when he fielded the ball hit to him and stepped on third base -- except it wasn't a force out. He knew right away he had blown it. No one needed to tell him that because he's hard enough on himself. So how did his coach handle it? Here's what he said to Ethan afterwards: "Ethan, you're a genius in the classroom, but an idiot on the field. You'll never play an inning of varsity baseball doing that." He had plenty more to say to him, but that was the lowlight.

The coach ripped into everyone he could. One kid walked away from the field in tears. Ethan took it well; a lot better than I'm taking it. I talked to Ethan on the walk to the bus after the game and told him he played well. "It wasn't good enough," Ethan said. I told him he got on base all four times. "It wasn't good enough," Ethan said. "You made a couple plays at third. Had a real nice tag on that kid trying to steal," I said. "It wasn't good enough," Ethan said. We talked about what the coach said and I said to pay no attention to him. If the coach wants to give him pointers on fundamentals and actually be a coach, that's one thing. If the coach wants to be a raving, abusive idiot, just block that stuff out of your head. We got near the bus and our paths diverged. I told him he played well. Ethan shook his head: "Imagine if we had lost."

I don't understand this style of "coaching." I get that there are times when you need to crack down on the kids and get their attention or point out the mistakes they made and get them to understand how to make the play correctly. It's one thing if the kids aren't playing hard, or as some say, "disrespecting" the game. That's not the case here with these kids, it looks to me. They play hard. They're not perfect. Excuse me, but baseball is a game where it's considered a success if you get a hit every three or four times at bat. You can get your message across without getting personal. Without demeaning them. Without calling them idiots. A good coach can demand a lot from his players, but still have their respect. A great coach prepares his team to succeed on the field and his players play hard as much as for themselves as for their coach. When winning a game isn't any fun, something is wrong. Hey coach, it's a game. A game played by kids who are playing because they love the game. And who are hoping to have some fun.

A Blur

These days are a blur. Whether it's because of the explosion of pollen or the fact that we have so much going on -- in addition to all the regular activities, the 4 kids playing soccer and Ethan playing baseball and shuttling Taylor back and forth to work, it's kind of crazy around here -- I can't be sure. Olivia turned 2 on March 30 and she was going around the house in the days leading up to her birthday singing, "Happy day, happy day!" And she kept trying to show how old she was going to be by holding up two fingers but always had her thumb sticking out. The hand coordination thing is a work in progress. It was a grand birthday party and at some point we'll track down some photos of it. You see a couple of photos up there of some folks rather dressed up who appear to be "dancing." Several weeks ago we attended a "Sweet Sixteen" party for two local young ladies who are close friends of the family and someone caught some of us on camera in a "dancing" type of activity. Taylor and Claire were looking sharp, eh?

We went from winter to summer in about a day this year. It was a long, hard winter with record amounts of snowfall around Virginia -- parts of Northern Virginia had more than 5 feet this year -- and then one day it was 75 degrees. Then 85 degrees the next day and 91 the next day. It was crazy. The kids have been running through the sprinkler every day this week, the pollen was so thick I about needed a snow shovel to get it off the cars and the air conditioning units were roaring. Spring? A fleeting thought at this point. But I woke up this morning and it had rained all night and cooled things off. It's supposed to be upper 60s this weekend, which should make perfect soccer weather. Eli has proven to be a goal-scoring machine. He had another 2 goals last Saturday, the second time he's done that. Madeline is a crowd favorite and Gabe has shown amazing improvement on the pitch in just a few weeks. He's been playing a lot of soccer in the back yard and it's paying off. Abram scored a goal this year that was really cool. Usually he plays a lot of defense but when he got his chance he put one in the back of the net. It's great stuff.