Benjamin’s school, being generally wonderful, has a full complement of after-school sports and activities for the kids to participate in. They have about 50 different things that the kids can do after school — everything from Cub Scouts to soccer to rugby to crafts to the math club. Lots of choices. And the activities are, apparently, wildly popular — there is an online registration setup which is one of those things where you lurk on the website until the moment the page opens, sign up the instant that you can and hope you get a spot. Since it wasn’t the kind of thing that allows for indecision, I set aside the time at noon the day of the sign up to be at my computer to pounce on the sign-ups, and sat down with B the night before to talk through the options and discuss his preferences.
As we were going through, at first he wasn’t sure he wanted to do anything. He said that school is busy enough, and maybe he didn’t want to stay after school even once a week. And I was totally cool with that. But, I wanted to be sure, and as we went through the list, he latched on to both gymnastics and soccer as the things he most wanted to do, which didn’t surprise me — those were the two I most expected him to pick. But then, we got to golf. And he said, “No, that’s it. I want to do golf. I want to learn how to be even better than Uncle Peter and Uncle Adam.”
He’s never golfed before, so it was a total surprise that he was so intensely interested in it. I have no idea if he’ll enjoy it (and neither does he), but I love the enthusiasm and confidence in his choice. And I just keep smiling over the idea of my little guy bonding with his uncles, an ocean away, over this game that they love and which hopefully he will be able to share with them when we are all together.
Because of the way the sign ups were done, I went ahead and signed him up for all 3 of his favorites — golf, gymnastics AND soccer — because I wasn’t sure whether we’d get a spot in any of them. As it turns out, we got a spot in each, and now B is into the idea of all 3, so we’ve gone from maybe not wanting to do any to committing to 3 days per week for the semester. In truth, I think he’s going to love them all, and I’m excited to see which (if any) kindle a true passion in him. But, in particular, the idea of him out golfing with my brothers one day is pretty special. I might be hoping, just a little, that he loves golf most of all.