Happy Birthday, Jamie!

JJ got a post last month, so now it’s Jamie’s turn. 🙂 Today is his birthday, and after the year he’s had (that we’ve all had), I think it’s definitely a day to celebrate him.

It has been an extremely tough year for this kid.  It started with last year’s hockey fiasco in which he ended up on a really bad team and had to suffer through a 3-34-3 season.  Don’t get me wrong, he made some great new friends (as did I) and he had some fun, but the season as a whole was extremely difficult.  He never gave up, though, and was proud to wear the Belle Tire uniform for one season.

On top of that, school has been a miserable experience for all of us this year.  Academically, Jamie is still super-smart, getting all A’s, and doing great on the standardized tests. But the social aspect of school has been, unequivocally, a disaster. :/ Jamie made a few bad decisions this year (as 13-year-olds sometimes do), and unfortunately, he is learning that your actions can have long-lasting repercussions.  Besides the incident linked above from November, he, along with most of his class, made some poor decisions regarding a teacher at the school last month. (The whole class was involved, but the truth is that my son was definitely one of the lead instigators.)  So, punishment was  meted out once again (the kid has been in a near-constant state of punishment since October) and then, we hoped, we would move on.

Then about a week ago, Jamie got a detention.  ARGH! I was ready to ground him from life at that point…until I got home and heard the story.  Now, all year long, whenever we’ve had issues with Jamie’s behavior at school, I have supported the school administration, assumed his guilt, and punished him accordingly.  But this time…the punishment did not seem just.  And I got mad!  So I asked for a meeting with the teacher, the principal, my husband and me, as well as Jamie.  It took a week and two phone calls from me before it got scheduled, and  poor Jamie was positively miserable that whole time, especially when it was finally scheduled and he knew he would have to go in and face this teacher (yes, the one referenced above under “poor decisions”) and the principal. He kept telling me no one would believe his side of the story and that it was going to be awful.  I told him that everyone just wants to get this situation straightened out, and his dad and I were going to be there to make sure that a resolution was reached so he could get through his final quarter of 8th grade.

Well, as it turns out–he was right and I was wrong. :/ It was a miserable experience and one I hope I never have to repeat.  As I mentioned, Jamie is learning the hard way that his actions can haunt him for a very long time.  Let me tell you, it’s very, very hard to see your child crying and upset and feel powerless to help them. I can’t lie–I cried, too.   🙁  But after it was over, despite the fact that we did not feel that our concerns were heard, Jason, Jamie and I sat down together and agreed that Jamie is going to become a model student in every class, and he’s going to project an outward display of happiness, even if he isn’t feeling it inside, just so we can get through the next two months.  I swear, middle school is 1000 times harder as a parent than it was when I was a student!!

So, those are some of the negatives we’ve had this year, but I want to ensure that we talk about the positives.  Well, mostly positive. 🙂  I didn’t mention it a couple of weeks ago, but we had a rather sad event in our household. Actually, I think it was only sad for me. Jamie’s final skate with his hockey team was the last Tuesday in February. I got a picture of him at the “fun skate” with his three coaches.

I made no secret at the beginning of the season that I had a lot of misgivings about this team. The truth is, they pretty much lived up (down) to my expectations as far as the scoreboard, but the coaches were good, decent guys, and they put in a lot of time and effort, especially the two guys on the outside, who did not have children on the team. They were at nearly every practice and every game, and showed a lot of dedication to kids who were not their own. So despite the team’s record, I give these guys a tremendous amount of credit, and I truly appreciated everything they did. We also met some great families, and I consider most of them to be my friends. Thank goodness for social media, which lets me keep up with them, even though Jamie will not be skating with them again.

The reason that Jamie will not be skating with them this spring is not because we decided not to go back to the team; it’s because Jamie decided not to go back to any team this spring. Yep, you read that right: for the first time in eight years, my son will not be playing hockey this season. 😮 This doesn’t represent the end of his hockey career…not at all.  It just represents a single season when he has the opportunity to play a sport he’s been begging us to play for 3 years.

Do you know what it is?  For those who don’t–it’s lacrosse!  He’s been to a few clinics and loved it, and through a lot of searching and phone calls and emails last month, I was finally able to find a team for him this spring. (Unfortunately, it’s far from our house…and practices are 3-4 times per week, ugh.)  Last week was the beginning of the season, and they had 5 practices leading up to a special game on Saturday at–

The University of Michigan!  Say what?!  His first-ever lacrosse game is at the Big House?  Seriously…how do you top that? 😉  Although the team got beat pretty badly (they are small in number and about half the kids have zero experience playing, like Jamie), they had a blast. (Although it was frickin’-A cold!!!)  To my surprise, my son played a ton! (He’s easy to spot below in the neon green socks, ha ha!)

Afterwards, we got to stick around and watch the U-M – Dartmouth game, which was a fun new experience.

Although they lost a close one, those college kids, bless their hearts, came out and signed autographs afterwards for the young lacrosse players.  I haven’t seen Jamie smile so much since last summer!

He was so excited to talk to them and have them ask him about his lacrosse experience.  You can see by the way his whole face is lit up that it was a tremendous experience for him.

So, yes, it was a great day for him, and he’s really looking forward to more lacrosse.  And then, in the summer (when we are finally done with middle school!), he will begin training with–*gasp!*–the high school hockey team! 😮 He’s already been to a “futures skate” earlier this month (to let the coaches get a look at the kids that will be coming in the fall), and he’s really excited about that, too.

So, despite the difficult year, we are still extremely proud of this kid and are excited about what great things his 14th year will bring.  Happy birthday to my sweet first-born!