The "Bragging on my Kids" thread

“Cameron played in his second baseball tourney of the summer last weekend. This was the first time he had ever faced "kid pitching," as his level of little league this past spring was machine pitch. He went right after the first pitch and smacked a hard three-hopper down the 3rd base line - foul, unfortunately. Then he struck out. But his second time up he was equally aggressive - at least until the kid hit him in the head with a pitch. Down he went, tears flowed, a small bruise and some swelling were apparent, but all was good when the ump reminded him he got to go to first! He made a nifty play as 1st baseman on a genuine worm-burner, almost a double play.

In the 2nd game, he got a key hit to knock in the tying run. He also pitched an inning for the first time, somewhat successfully. Oh, also another HBP, although no pain was involved, as it just grazed his uniform. No, he did not charge the mound.

This weekend the team travels to Modesto for another tourney - 100-degree temps are likely!!”

“Celebrated my daughter's 18th birthday with her Saturday, and she had a great present for ME: she did so well on her AP (advance placement) tests, that University of Michigan is giving her 27 credits and she's starting college as a sophomore. One year down, and she hasn't even moved into the dorm yet, woo hoo!”

“27 credits? Wow! That is something to be proud of.”

“WOW Pekka! That's great! Congrats to both of you!”

“Congrats!!”

“Let's get this in perspective.


Four years of college: Room, Board and Tuition = $40,000.

Incidentals: $300 per month for 48 months = $14,100

25% savings = $12,850


All the new gear you can buy with the new found savings:


Priceless.


Congrats!”

“Chili36,
Better yet, he could apply that $12,850 towards the third year's costs and now only have two years tuition, R & B and books to pay for!”

“Give her a big hug for that! What did you get her for her birthday? With a savings like that a new car may be in order?”

“Thanks for the congrats all, it is a big dent in things, especially added to the several one-time scholarships she earned that took about a 1/3 bite out of this first year.

As for her reward, well, she's a budding filmmaker, so she's getting a 1 ghz I-Mac w/17-inch screen and a digital video camcorder. The computer will match those in her honors program study center. Plus she'll be in a German (her other major) cinema class where one of the projects will be to make a short film in German.

Filmmaking --- and I thought outdoor sports gear was expensive, lol.”

“She will be studing film? What does she plan to do after college? I was in the TV business as a producer for several years, I should have went towards film. No money left in TV.”

“Come on Dad, cough it up. Apple just came out with the G-5, problably about $5K.”

“Shawn, not that she wouldn't love that G5, but she's not only extremely smart, but exceedingly reasonable, thank goodness. As long as she has that bigger screen with cinema format for editing and watching and a SuperDrive that she can burn DVDs with, she's happy.”

“I don't have kids, but my dog could kick your honor students ass.”

“Awww, what a sweet sentiment. Pekka, I think you have a friend.”

“I seriously doubt it, ThePackMan.”

“Remember the days when you didn't have to work to be in pretty good shape? My daughter, with only three short practice rides in the prior week for "training", went out Saturday morning for the annual Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic up in the U.P. and took 3rd in her age group (16-19) for the 28-mile race, and 73rd among 216 women in that race.

About 1,400 riders in all for the 40-miler, 28-miler, and kids' 3 miler, on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning in the U.P. woods/hills from Negaunee to Marquette. Made me wish my wrists could still handle bashing my Trek along single-track.”

“this is a couple of days late, but this is the first chance I have had to post this.

when i came home on Thursday night (the black out)I was very worried about my children.
When I got home I found my son outside handing (after my daughter would not allow him to sell it first LOL) out water to people that had walked all the way from NYC. I was so proud of him :)
then when I got into my apartment my daughter had gone to the store and bought candles and a large box of matches and had cleared all the tables and had all of the candels ready to go. she had a flash light ready to.

I was just so proud of how they handled themselves when push came to shove. they both did what needed to do.
so for that I am very proud of them :)”

“Yes Maple, and you have reason to be proud. They do surprise you once in a while. Shows you though that you have teached them the right values, so you should be proud of yourself too. ya know!! :)”

“I wanted to post this when this thread was active, but the finished product wasn't out yet.

This past spring, my son and some friends got word that a modeling agency was looking for some kids their age to do a photo shoot for an anti-smoking brochure. This wasn't too exciting, but the possibility of earning $200 was, so they went to the test shoot.

A few of them were chosen to be in the final shoot, so my wife drove them to Seattle to an old school and they spent a few hours being photographed. Lo and behold, the brochure has been published. It's in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format. My son appears on page 8.

Click to see the brochure”

“Yellow shirt, blue sweater?

Pretty cool!

I really expected it would be some dumb sqwerl picture.”

“vIoLiN, yeah, that be him...Oh, BTW, he's now dating Tyra Banks but I think she wants him for the skwerl.”

“con grads kleetn!!”

“my daughters put up a nice lil web page for amiee - :} enjoy

http://www.angelfire.com/pa5/amethyst/”

“...but I didn't want to start a new thread.

My 21 year old daughter is on her way to London and then Italy with friends to visit their friend, Valeria. Valeria was a college exchange student from Italy who was here all last year. They became very close.

They will spend a day-and-a-half in London, then on to Northern Italy. Valeria lives in Milan. They will visit Venice, Rome, Florence, and spend time at a beach house in Cinque Terre, among other places. The trip will last 3 weeks.

My daughter was pretty excited, but nervous at the same time. I think it will be a great experience for her. Of course, as a parent you always worry about your child's safety when they travel far from home.”

“Sounds like a great adventure Phil.
I'm feeling some similar things. My 15 year old son left for Xian (China) last week. My Dad helped him settle in with the Chinese family he will be staying with. He is in good hands and has lots of supervision and has already show a real facility for the language (he was studying and getting daily tutoring over the summer) - but after having him live with me every day (almost), its weird to be trading emails.

He has had such a whirl-wind lately: to Mexico with his Mom, to New York City with friends, filming his reality TV show for Family Channel and then off to China two days later. I wish I could give him a hug and watch him carefully to see how he is handling this whirl-wind. My ex is definitely going out to visit him - I may also take a trip if I can get cheap tickets at the end of this semester (I can't really take a week off while I'm teaching).

I haven't felt so helpless in trying to support him since his Mom anounced she wanted a divorce. Fortunately all the changes and transformations this time around are ones he's wanted... and I need to get used to this. He's due to graduate high school in June 2005, less than two years away.

Golly look at me ramble, can you guess I'm sleep deprived???”

“ped - Can't imagine what all you are going thru. Good luck with it and I hope you get to visit him.

My 16 year old nephew just got back from a visit to Japan. It sounds like it changed his life. He says that world travel is what he wants to do so now he is motivated to get a scholarship to college.

It will be interesting to see what impact these trips have on our kids. My daughter spent a week in Mexico when she was 17 helping build a house for a poor family. That experience had a positive impact on her.”

“My youngest daughter is 26 months old. We started potty training a couple of weeks ago and she’s doing well. Yesterday my wife was on the phone when the little one said “mommy pee-pee”. She had just gone so my wife blew her off. When she got off the phone she found that my daughter had gotten her step stool, climbed up on the toilet and taken a dump all by herself.

I couldn’t be more proud!”

“Congratulations!

(Kinda surprised there was no link or pic to go along with your good news)”

“Don't tempt me.”

“My son Ian, a college freshman, and my daughter Rebekah, a high school freshman, are both running cross-country this fall. Both just had their first meets within the last couple of days.

I thought Ian was going to get his butt kicked, but he did very well, finishing 8th on his team, 19th out of about 45 runners.

Rebekah finished 12th out of about 40 runners, in her first cross-country race ever, and was 8th on her team--which is likely to be one of the top 3 teams in the state this year, for the third year in a row.”

“a pic...LOL @ Phil!! please, no...

hmmm, Fritz's offspring seem to be viable, despite their alien/troll parentage. veddy in-ter-est-ing...
;-D”

“ped, keep us up on your son's China experience. All the Chinese I knew while there cared very much about their children. While your son will get inordinate attention at times, being an "alien creature" to many, he will likely never feel ignored either. Other than typical traffic or germ issues, we never felt our daughter, 8 at the time, was in any danger -- to the point finally of letting her go on her own to her favorite noodle joint when she was hungry, something we might not have done in an American city of several million.

I worry more now about my 18-year-old daughter off at U-M in Ann Arbor, though I'm pretty certain those are unreasonable concerns for the most part (just a dad remember what HE did his freshman year in college).”

“pekka, the apple don't fall far from the tree, man...”

“Okay. Picture for any interested parties.”

“hee hee.”

“Oh sure, like we're gonna fall for that...”

“I swear that is not my 'homepage'.”

“for real, bitpusher! go ahead and click it!”

“so i sse you are a freak then lyra....”

“So you two ladies have more courage than bitpusher, huh?”

“thats right, we are super freaks!!”

“My son has earned me the right to brag....so I'm gonna. He is on the all A's honor roll. He wants to be an anesthesiologist. Donations for his college fund can be sent to my paypal account..LOL I'm so proud :-)”

“Ivygal, that's great! Brag away!”

“My daughter, who was a starter on the 7th grade b-ball team last winter, had a dilemma on her hands this year. She really wanted a part in the school play, but couldn't be in the play AND shoot hoops. In fact...she had to choose between the two before even knowing if she could get a part in the play.

Well....I encouraged her to "follow her dreams" because it was clear that the play was what she wanted most. She went through three days of auditions and found out last week that not only did she get a part, but she got exactly the part she wanted! Not the lead, but a significant part--she had a solo she sings in the play.

She is THRILLED. And we are proud. :)”

“Wow, a solo, she is a very brave girl! Congratulations to her, Fritz.”

“Kudos to Ivygal's son and to Fritz's daughter! Accomplishments go a long ways and even though I am not a parent, I have a nephew who is 21 months old. I was there today and my sister took off his "light up" shoes...you know the kind that light up when they stomp instead of walk...and after his shoes were removed, he squinched up his face while pulling off his socks that are no bigger than a minute, balled em' up in his little hand and proceeded to fling them forcefully over the baby gate towards the laundry room. He giggled, of course, after doing this and then decided to throw each of his light up shoes that way too! 21 months old and he's got an arm that is unbelievable! He's also got an energy level that makes me think he is going to be one helluva kid in his time! Did I taint the kids thread by talking about a nephew? Hope not cause the only other thing I got that I can brag about is a dog no bigger than the socks that I saw fly over a baby gate today.”

“I am very proud of my kids! What's left of them!”

“My 15 year old son is in Xian, China, studying the language and caligraphy and immersing himself in the city. He also organized a production of Shakespeare's 12th night - which he is directing. Auditioned, got some funding, wardrobe and props, arranged for a stage, got University sponsorship and last night they won first prize in a drama competition.

The kid has talent and confidence that blow my mind. I'm headed out to see him, celebrate his birthday, see his play and bring him home in a few weeks.”

“Wow Ped! Impressive son you have there.”

“Congratulations, where do they get this stuff?”