Teeth, Hoops, and Firsts

Mireille finally lost that first tooth! It was a few weeks ago, now. She was walking around the kitchen, and I asked her, like I had been every day for quite a few weeks, how her teeth were doing. Her two front teeth on the bottom were coming in behind the baby teeth. On that fateful night, one of them was finally loose enough that I felt confident enough to give it a little tug and evict it from its spot that the other tooth so badly wanted. She was tough - no crying or anything. I think she was a little sad that she didn’t lose it at school since they give you a cool necklace for your fallen chomper so you can take it home - she really wanted one of those necklaces!!! The other one never really got loose enough for me to pull, but the dentist did the deed a couple of weeks later with the help of some laughing gas and a little numbing medicine. I, sadly, wasn’t there to see it, but Jenny said she was pretty out of it. A little video would have been fun!

The other Mireille first of late was that she read her first book by herself!!! Well, she read her first book by herself to me. I suppose that’s a notable difference. Jenny tells me that she’s been reading books to her for weeks now, but whatever, I thought it was pretty cool. The book was about a dog, one of her favorite subjects. The dog sits, chomps, takes a nap, etc. She’s read it to me a few times now. I’m not sure I ever really thought about the process of learning how to read with the boys - probably just because I am impatient and tried to get things done as quickly as possible, but there really is a lot to learn. It’s not all about learning letters by sight, learning how they sound, etc. You also have to learn all these conventions that our western civilization has set forth, like grouping letters into words separated by spaces, doing things from left to right and top to bottom… It’s sort of a lot of things to take in!!! But I’m happy to say that Mireille is joining the world of literate people.

Lastly, Quinton has been involved in a basketball league this spring. He was at our fitness club just shooting some baskets when a coach saw him and asked if he wanted to join his team. Quin really loves basketball, and we’ve been looking for somewhere outside of school to get him some reps since he needed to learn how a real basketball team worked with plays and strategy, something his school team sorely lacked. This team is pretty fun for him, though they are pretty terrible still. Quinton is consistently among the tallest kids on the court, and almost always the heaviest and still very athletic, so he commands quite a presence on the court. His skills need some developing, but he’s doing pretty well. On Sunday they won their first game. It was excruciating to watch - they scored 3 points in the first half to the other team’s 7, which I thought was an insurmountable lead given how things were going. But the team pulled it together in the second half, bringing the score to 12-13 with 19 seconds to go. The coach called a timeout and designed a play which they executed perfectly - it was a sideline inbounds pass to Quinton who ran off a pick at half court. He then proceeded to dribble casually but purposefully to the hoop where he, without a doubt, laid the ball into the basket just like you should. It’s at once frustrating and gratifying to see that. On the one hand, he could have been doing that all game - he had opportunities! On the other hand, he has a confidence that is impressive. In that situation, he couldn’t imagine anybody else on the team getting the ball, and he can’t fathom a way that he doesn’t win the game in that instance. He was very non-chalant about it, though it was very impressive to our team’s parents, and crushing to the other team.