Petanque

The other day, Trevor told m something: The French class that Trevor is in is now playing in a game called petanque. In fact, the school which Trevor attends is one of only three schools in Oregon which play this game.

When I learned about this, I had to smile. I mentioned that I knew about petanque – because there’s a scene of children playing it in one of my novels! Well, it’s the very ancient version of the game and it was played by Gaulish children. But, yeah, sam game! The one Trevor plays is the modern version.

After learning about this, I became excited. I wanted to see Trevor playing this game! Honestly, I thought Trevor was done with sports forever. But then THIS happened! So I guess NOT!

Anyway, today was a day for another game. And THIS particular game was to be played at another school!

The problem was, I didn’t know how to get to that school. I spent hours going over routes to the school on Google Maps. My husband coached me on how to get there. And Trevor also was my navigator – pointing out which way to go as I drove.

Even after all that, though, I still got lost! (I missed the exit on the freeway.) It took a while, but we got back on track and Trevor once again took over in the role of “navigator” to show me which way to go.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting Trevor to the game late and Trevor was unable to play on the regular team. I felt really miserable about that. I sat there moping and thinking I should get the Worst Mother of the Year award. Even though Trevor kept insisting it was okay. I still felt bad! However, after another team finished playing, they invited both Trevor AND Jesse to play. Cool! I was excited about this but even more excited that Jesse got to participate too.

That’s right, folks. Today my son learned how to play petanque. He had fun playing it too!

Trevor and some of the others (including Trevor’s French teacher) gave Jesse tips on how to play and showed him how to stand inside the ring and how to toss the ball. It took a while before he caught on.

Then it started to rain. First it was a light drizzle, stopped, rained, stopped, then there was a huge freaking downpour! And I was sitting there watching as everybody kept continuing to play petanque. I had my coat but no hood or umbrella so Trevor was kind enough to remove the jacket and drape it over me, covering my head. I protested at first – I didn’t want to be fussed over – but Trevor insisted on it so I accepted and said thank you.

They finished out the game and then we all went to where there was a tented area with a table of food. As everybody ate the snacks, I hung around under the tent just to get out of the rain!

Despite getting soaked in the rain – and despite getting lost – it was a fun time and we were all smiles as we left. We all had a great time! I took as many pictures as I was able to in between the episodes of rain. I am happy I got to see Trevor play petanque, happy that Jesse learned it AND that he got to play too, and happy that I was able to get some pictures! Yay for petanque! I can’t wait to go to the next game!

 

 

Jesse's last basketball game

My son, Jesse, has been sick with a chest infection since last Monday and he had a rough week. He got to a point of being too sick to go to school and he ended up missing 3 days of school. Fortunately, he saw a doctor on Saturday, and we are giving him the right medicines that he needs for treatment.

And while I definitely want to encourage a child to rest and limit activities while being sick, it would seem that Jesse was not going to be able to do that this weekend.

Yesterday was the day the team pictures for his basketball team were being taken and today was their last game. It was not like we could reschedule these things and this was the only time those things were going to happen. And while Jesse was feeling pretty crappy, I knew he had to go to both games. If he didn’t go, he would miss out on both of those things. He might regret that later and also get really upset. My husband didn’t want Jesse to go to either games, but these were the last two – the first with team pictures – so I told him that Jesse had to go despite being sick. (And anyway, I wanted Jesse to learn that sometimes we have to do things even when we are sick. Heck, when I was sick for all of last week, I still got up early in the morning and got the kids to school! Life doesn’t stop just because we get sick!)

I explained to the coach that Jesse was sick so Jesse was allowed to sit out Saturday’s game. However, Jesse was feeling well enough to play today, so he got to play with his team for their last game. I am so glad that he got to play, too. It WAS the last game! His team didn’t win but they still had a good game. And Jesse played pretty well, despite being sick.

So he got to be in the team pictures and he also got to play for his team’s last game. This season has gone by so fast. Jesse did miss a lot of practices and games, unfortunately, because of sickness or because we were out of town, but he had a great time playing basketball. I am glad he has good memories of his first experience of playing basketball. He will cherish those memories for a long time. His teammates were awesome and he got along with everybody. And his coaches were awesome, too!

It’s gonna take me a while to get used to not having to schedule things around his practices and games, and even not taking him to practices or games anymore! But there’s always next season. He is looking forward to playing on a basketball team again. Meanwhile, he’ll be shooting hoops off-season when he gets the chance!

Here are the pictures I took from today’s game. Jesse is #40.

Don't tell ME "no sign language"!

As a deaf parent, sign language is, of course, a part of how I communicate with my children. My husband also uses sign to understand what our kids are saying to us. We use both sign language and lipreading to communicate with them. We sign every day. It’s just a part of how we talk to each other.

And when Jesse asked me to play a game with him today, I agreed, preparing for another round of communicating with him through sign. As he sat up the game, however, I took some time to read over the rules. My jaw dropped when I saw one rule in particular: “No sign language.”

For real????

I showed this to Jesse and commented how wrong that rule was. I guess the people who put that game together and wrote up the rules decided they didn’t want deaf people to play?

Well, despite that stupid rule, my son and I still communicated with each other through sign language as we played the game. It’s really the major way we communicate with each other: Through sign language! I am profoundly deaf and cannot use hearing aids. I either rely on lipreading or sign language or writing things down to communicate with others. Sometimes my kids sign to me what other people say. So, yeah, I DO need to use sign language for a game that relies on verbal communication.

But the thing about this that really pissed me off was that this was JUST another example of how the hearing people forget about the deaf people in this world. Some hearing people out there don’t realize that there are DEAF PEOPLE – which means WE CANNOT HEAR – out there in the world. We kind of need to use sign language for communication. We also need captioning, subtitles or an ASL interpreter signing to let us know about emergency bulletins and evacuation procedures.

There are hearing people in this world and there are deaf people, too. It would be nice if more hearing people would remember us deaf people and the types of communication accommodations that we need. This includes sign language.

So even if a game says we can’t use sign language, well, that’s too bad. Because as far as me and my family goes, well, we sort of need to use sign language. It’s just one of the ways that we talk to each other.

Using the Boston Marathon bombing for attention is uncool

Tragedy struck in our country yesterday when two bombs detonated at the scene of the Boston Marathon. What had been a day of excitement and joy shattered into a horrific nightmare as two bombs went off within seconds of each other. Three people died and over 170 people were injured.

Today I wanted to write a poem about what happened -- specifically, to remember those lost that day and to offer my thoughts to those affected by it. I could not write this poem yesterday; I was too stunned when I learned about what happened and would not have been able to write about it. But today I did. First, though, I read all of the articles I could find about it. I watched the videos and looked at the pictures. Had to stop, though, after I started to cry because it all just got to be too much. After I recomposed myself, I wrote the poem.

And I thought that was the last of it. I found out otherwise later on!

First, I'll say that my 11-year-old daughter, Jennifer, does know about what happened yesterday. They were talking about it at her school and I explained it to her.

Now, Jennifer plays an Internet game with her friends. Of course, other people have the option of playing this game, too. It's a very popular game and it's on a reputable site. Well, today, when she was playing the game, she got my attention and told me, "This kid is saying his dad and brother died in the Boston Marathon bombing yesterday."
 
Right after she told me that, alarm bells immediately went off. Something about that wasn't right. I did NOT know for certain if that was true -- in all the articles I'd read, I didn't come across names of those killed -- but this struck me as incorrect somehow. I told Jennifer to be careful. I said she should just say "I'm sorry" then move on. Don't talk to that person. She told me she did but she was also feeling a little sad for that person. I told her, "I don't think he's telling the truth so don't get too close. Just go do other things." She said she would do that.

With that settled, I grabbed my phone and Googled for the names of the people who died in the bombings, hoping that information was out there somewhere. Thankfully, an article came up with the names, and guess what? There was NO father and son among the dead. I knew that there was a little boy who died, but not sure of the others. But there was no father and son.

I went back to where Jennifer sat at the desk and informed her of what I found out. She was confused why someone would do that and I told her some people tell lies on the Internet to get attention or to trick people into sending them money and stuff. My husband and I have told her MANY times not to trust people she doesn't know on the Internet but I guess sometimes she needs the occasional reminder.

I went back to cooking dinner but I was really upset about this. I was shocked someone would use something like a national tragedy to get attention or to have people feel sorry fo him. Or to just deceive others. I was also angry about it. What kind of sicko DOES that??

Later, as we ate dinner, I told my husband about what happened. (He'd been at work.) After I told him, Jennifer asked him why someone would do that.

"Because they're liars," he said.

He went on to say more to her about it but I did not pay attention. I was in my own thoughts, remembering how I'd been angry someone would do that. But, like Jennifer, I could not understand how someone would do such a thing, or even why. Yes, I know there are liars and tricksters and people who deceive others. But it's still hard for me to understand why any person thinks it's perfectly okay to use a horrible tragedy as a way to get attention. It's just wrong. It's so wrong.


Jennifer did speculate that maybe these were two guys who died later. I told her that could be true, but I'd been going through several news sites since this came up and still did not see anything about a father and son who died from their injuries. So it is very likely that what happened at her game today was just someone using this story to get attention. That's pretty pathetic.

If only more people would understand the devastation we feel because of terrible tragedies such as this. The nightmare it causes for all of us. And the devastating loss of a loved one, of a child. Something like this should not be used for selfish reasons or dishonest motives. People who think it's okay to do that should think twice and ask themselves if they think it's worth dishonoring the memory of those who REALLY lost their lives on that day.


NOTE: Since posting this, I have NOT discounted the possibility that maybe that kid was telling the truth. I'm not saying this was indeed a person telling a lie just to get attention but right off the bat, the way it looked to me at that time, this person could not be trusted. I have since come across this article and have considered that perhaps a father and son related to this kid did indeed perish because of the bombing.