Tag Archives: kids

Canton 7, Jackson County 5 – NORTH CAROLINA STATE 8 YO CHAMPS

23 Jul

Huge congratulations to my son and his 11 teammates for an excellent season!  

More at The Mountaineer… (the article was actually written by Karma, but posted by the sports editor.  She is listed as the author in the actual printed paper, so now she’s a published author as well as a photographer.  Not sure I qualify to live in my own house, since I’m not famous or anything!)

Yeah, the boys made the WLOS news last night, too, I understand.  

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I think he wants me to be happy, too….

26 Jun

It really ruins my day when my kids don’t have a good day.  When they suffer some disappointment that turns their little world in a direction they don’t like – and it doesn’t take much – I usually don’t react well.  I get tense, I get angry, and I usually blame them because they’re not dealing with it in a mature fashion.

Yeah, he’s 8, she’s 5.  They should be mature.  Good grief, Bernard, why don’t you just be an idiot…

It occurred to me today that they want ME to have fun, too, subconsciously.  They want their Daddy to have a good time with them.  Not JUST to let them do fun stuff, but to actually ENJOY the fun with them.  It’s no fun at all to get to do something but feel like you’ve ruined someone’s day by doing it.  Even for those little folks, they know SOMETHING is wrong.

Lotsa improvement needed, here.  There’s a lot about my parenting that, well, leaves much to be desired.

But I’m working on it.

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Canton vs. Waynesville, Scorekeeping, and Other Baseball Thoughts

24 Jun

Baseball saturation.

Out of the past 21 days, I think we’ve been at a baseball field 19 of them.  Maybe 20.  Seriously.
My boy Trav is a big kid.  He has to work extremely hard to make weight for football.  His body wants to grow and we don’t want to stop that, just control the extra.  He loves football like dogs love Milk Bones.
But the fact remains, that boy can play baseball like crazy.  I wish I knew his batting average for the year, but it’s bound to be in the .850 range.  It was .900 for the regular season with no strikeouts.  Yeah, it’s machine pitch, but he’s only eight…
Little League All Star baseball season is intense.  We’ve already played three games this week, with one more tonight.  It’s a double elimination tournament, so everybody plays at least five times.  It’s a 45 minute drive each way, with the late games starting at 8, and it wears on everybody.  Especially little sister, who DOESN’T get to wear cool catchers gear or have 11 other kids yelling and screaming when she does something good, like crushing a ball to right field to rack up two more RBIs.
I actually kept a scorecard for last night’s county rivalry game.  I’ve never done that before, and it was an interesting experience.  It definitely makes the game more intriguing, especially for me, because there’s so much information involved in a baseball game.

We owed Waynesville a little bit of payback from last year, and we pretty much settled the debt with a final score of Canton 17, Waynesville 11.  They’re a good bunch of kids, and I hope they do well.  It was a great game with great play on both sides.  I hope we play them again in the finals, but the odds are pretty low, based on “who” is out there and the way the brackets are set up.
I love baseball.  I’m very thankful to have a son that loves it, too, and does well at the game.
Get ‘em, Canton All Stars!

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Church Wit Da Kidz

1 Feb

This will sound like a pompous “I’m more spiritual than you” post.

I’m not.  I promise.  I’m just a guy desperately trying to be like Christ.  Desperately.  Usually, I fail.  Terribly. 

Yesterday, however, was a bit of a high point for me.  Due to the first snowstorm of Twenty-Ten, Crossroads canceled all services, so the Shufords remained home for a portion of the day.  (We did duly make our way out later to feed our physical bodies; yes, we’re hypocrites…)

The thought crossed my mind first while in the shower, I think, as most of my good thoughts do.  (If I could remain in the shower for at least 3 hours a day, surely there would be world peace and no economic difficulties.)  The thought was to just have a brief “Shuford Church”.  Yeah, I know, all good daddies do this without thinking about it.

Nobody preached, although it was more than slightly humorous that Karma and I both chose “praising God” as our theme with absolutely NO planning.  We sang “Jesus Loves Me” and “Amazing Grace”, prayed a couple times, and we were done.  For once, I am pretty doggone sure that we did something right. 

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Friday Thawts

20 Nov

There was once a time that I had a Friday “regular” post, called Friday Thawts.  I also did “Monday Mawnings”, which was usually a reflection on the weekend’s events. 

As of now, I officially resurrect those days.

Today’s thawts…

  • The freakin’ UNC Tar Heels have got their work cut out for them against Syracuse tonight.  Ohio State knocked on the door hard last night, but the Orangemen will BRING IT.  That junk basketball the boys in blue have been playing won’t cut it tonight.  I’m afraid we’ll lose by 10.  Cross your fingers that I’m wrong.
  • Green Bay Packers vs. San Fancisco 49ers – Of course I want the Pack to win.  I know they CAN.  Whether they actually show up or not is another question.  Pack by 3.
  • Nascar – Grrrrr.  I hate racing. 
  • Crossroads is voting on a new pastor this week.  I’m looking forward to God doing amazing things.  
  • Crossroads is giving away free Christmas portraits to non-members in the community.  I love it. 
  • Got some news this morning that Precision Products may get really busy in the next few months.  Praise God for that!
  • I don’t like it when my kids are sick.
  • I need to get back on my exercise program. 

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