Tennis for the Fall?

Blaine has never been one to love sports. As a baby he didn’t walk around kicking balls or asking for me to throw balls to him to catch. He sat for hours with his Little People, and then Legos, and then Minecraft building worlds. He will read books with several hundreds of pages in one day. He absorbs facts and can carry on adult conversations with assurance and always seems slightly disappointed when I don’t have immediate answers for him. No, I don’t know how many galaxies there are and sadly I cannot contain historical facts or dates. He was a team captian for Academic Bowl this past spring.

But sports? That is something I feel like we have (painstakingly) encouraged each year, season after season. We’ve tried karate for a year, two baseball seasons, two summer swim teams, one track and football season, a junior PGA golf team and three basketball seasons.  Our goal was just to complete each season. To be fair, he did like track and basketball and we will likely do those again this year. But, my rule for the fall was at least one activity per child that will require two nights of practice a week.

Aislin will be doing cheer again and tumble, she wanted to squeeze in hip hop too, but I think that may have to wait. Blaine needed something. We had tried a tennis camp the summer before 2^nd grade. I found a Groupon for tennis lessons and bought it. We found a coach that he has clicked with. So far, he likes tennis. After the Groupon lessons ended I signed him up for more private lessons that the two of us are now sharing. Then I signed him up for a 10u tennis league in our neighborhood. I'm not a tennis player and I don't even know how to keep score, but it has always been on my bucket list to learn. We shared our first lesson and had a great time. My fingers are very tightly crossed that this will be the sport that clicks for him. We’ve seen the difference that exercise makes on his blood sugar. Being part of an organized activity is the best way to ensure exercise. I’ve got some strong hope for tennis to be his sport!