Bouncing Ball

Elliott has a tendency during basketball season to go to the basement and dribble.  He’ll dribble for quite a while.  Dribbling makes a lot of noise. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He’ll dribble around and talk to John.  The noise bothers me and they are downstairs. I can’t stay in the kitchen.   

Bounce, bounce, bounce. 

I am glad he does go down to dribble.  Practice is a good thing and it should build his confidence.  If I go downstairs to get a basket of clothes, I’ll try to take the ball from him.  Or I have him dribble around me so he has to work on skills. The weather was mild over Christmas break and on Christmas Eve, I took him to the elementary school to shoot hoops.  The parking lot had puddles and it was drizzling but we spent more than an hour shooting and having fun.  We’ll I had fun, Elliott tends to get uptight because his form isn’t right or he doesn’t make baskets.  We played a game or two of horse but he said that wasn’t fun.

They have been playing more games this year and practice goes well.  I see him improving and yes, his confidence is growing.  He really wants to get a basketball hoop put up at home. We don’t have much flat land and what we do have, well, it is wet most of the year. However, we have a tractor now and ditches can be dug in a day or two, so drainage and dry land may be very possible.  I’d love to have a basketball hoop up so we all can go out and shoot, play horse and just have fun. It’s just another thing for me to work on (a.k.a. work on the Big Guy to agree).

This being Elliott’s second year, I see improvement.  More important is his confidence.  Both of our kids think they should be able to play a sport and hey, be great at it right away. John and I sound like a broken record, “You have to practice, practice, practice to improve your game.”  They don’t see that mistakes are part of their growth.  We continue to work on that…season after season!

Winning always seems to build confidence and enthusiasm.  So when Elliott recently won a hoop shoot contest for his age group, I asked him how he felt.  He said, “I feel awesome!”  He should, he handled the ball well, concentrated and won.  I was happy for him and proud of his accomplishment. I wish he could stand back and see what I see – a young boy that has been blessed with incredible athletic abilities that develop with every season.

Here are some photos from a basketball game and his certificates and plaque from the hoop shoot. I forgot to mention, his win means he goes to another hoop shoot in February.  My goal now is to get the boy some court time, ball and hoop practice.

 Elliott is #34

 First place winner!