Parenting

My ex- has a 5 1/2 year old son. She is Chinese, brilliantly artistic, smart as a whip.. her husband is an aerospace engineer for Boeing. One of their smartest engineers..

Yilin, the son, has all the best 'being inheritances' of his parents-- brilliant, quick mind, good feeling development and very well physically coordinated (well that is his own, not his parents LOL).

His dad has way too much OCD, doesn't want him getting dirty, and all that you can imagine goes with that. Don;t do this, don;t do that...They live in downtown Huntsville, AL. So not much place to 'play. ASnd only contact with kids is at school and Tae Kwon Do, etc.

Last time I visited, Yu Yan, my ex-, Yilin and I went to a big state park up in the hills. I just let Yilin get as dirty as he wanted playing in the forest LOL!!!

And when Yu Yan and Yilin came to visit me a few weeks ago in upstate NY, he and I "played" baseball in the back yard. I didn;t have a bat SO we made one out of a tree limb from a fallen tree.
We went swimming in a lake and there were lots of kids. We were there for almost 4 hours LOL

I took him to a triple-A baseball game, his first and what happens?? he GETS a FOUL BALL !!! Jeeze, I didn;t get my first foul ball until I was like 65 !

Next day he kept saying, "I want to play base ball." OKAY! We went out, bought a bat and 2 gloves. And played all afternoon in the back yard.. And that evening, and the next day..

Even though he had seen only one game and had little idea what was going on---He made up bases, told me I must throw strikes so he could hit the ball.. Made an umpire's STRIKE motion when he missed... or I missed.

And that was just the 2 of us...

When I was a kid, we would play 'war', and 'cowboys and indians,' ( yeah.. what can I say.. I still have a pic of me at about 7-8 with 2 six guns) in the woods across the street.. no parents around.. in the summer, we just came home when it was time for dinner, then back out to play anything until dark-- cowboys, hide and seek, stick ball,

Little League baseball without the screaming parents... just .. baseball with good coaches, attitude...
Softball in the park league. Don't get dirty!! Are you kidding me??

Interesting times... soccer moms/dads/-