For February, I worked with Heidi, my almost 10 year old (Sunday!) on some cards for the girls on her hockey team.
There had been some building locker room drama that needed to be nipped in the bud so their coach assigned them a bit of homework.
Each girl was to write a note to each of the other girls on the team. The note was to include one positive comment about the other girls hockey skills and one positive comment about her personality.
The coach thought the exercise would take about 15 minutes. We have 13 girls on the team, take away yourself, and that is about one minute per girl. Makes sense.
However, that doesn't work for Heidi. If she is going to do something, she is going to do it right. And since these were personal notes she had to think hard about each girl.
We spent the better part of 90 minutes on this project.
I was so proud of her. She broke out stationary because simple notebook paper was just not good enough for this task. She put a lot of thought into the cards.
But what really got me was seeing how much she really cares for her team. How much she really respects each girl on her team. There were a few girls she was upset with when we start the project, by the end she was over it because she spent time thinking about their good traits so the little argument just melted away.
The locker room drama seems to have died down a bit. We have moved from pre-game bickering to pre-game dance parties centering around Up Town Funk and the girls bonding over making fun of the locker room mom's dance moves. Works for me!
As I type this we are getting ready to play game 4 of the district playoffs. If they win tonight they go on to play for 3rd place on Sunday (yep, Heidi's birthday). I will be in the stands trying not to have a stroke as I cheer for these amazing girls. Then I will continue the cheer for them weather they win or lose because it has been a wonderful year for these ladies and I have been there to watch them grow.
