Tennis for Two

As the school year has started back up, I have resisted the urgency to put Emma-Caroline and Sophie in 1009 activities that fill up the entire week and leave them with no real "kid" time. It's a hard thing to do. With the new school year, the girls are also continuing with ballet and tap, which they love. Emma-Caroline has become a member of our church choir, so there will be those practices. She is also a Girl Scout so there will be those meetings. We also have another church activity that the girls participate in on Tuesday afternoon, and they wanted to do soccer, and art lessons, and tennis, and ice skating lessons, and, and, and . . . . Whoa, now here we go again!  I want my girls to have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities, but I want them to do those thing because they want to do them not because we want them to do them. The other hard part is that they may want to do everything, and we need to create the balance for them because they are too young to actually do so now. And let's face it, sometimes as an adult, we have a hard time balancing all of our own activities. In any of these activities, above all, we want the girls to enjoy what they are doing, to learn something from what they are doing, to not feel stressed, and ultimately to be happy with who they are in each of the activities they participate in. So we picked one other thing, tennis, for the girls to participate in on Tuesday. And that's it. It's enough. If they like tennis, they will continue. This is Emma-Caroline's second set of real lessons and she seems to like it and to be getting the hang of it. For Sophie, we are simply just letting her hit the ball along with big sister, and if she learns something, then it's icing on the cake. Ultimately, the girls are enjoying their tennis lessons and that is all that really matters.

Is Daddy a Tennis Star????

I turned the TV on briefly this morning. It was already set to ESPN and tennis just so happened to be to topic of the moment. Emma-Caroline was intrigued by the coverage of Roger Federer's 15th grand slam, especially when they flashed a picture of Pete Sampras, of whom she asked, "Is that Daddy?"
There is a slight resemblance, especially when you see Sampras's picture for a split second like Emma-Caroline did. Now she's all pumped up to be a tennis star "just like Daddy" LOL!

Emma-Caroline's First Tennis Lesson

Emma-Caroline is now taking tennis lessons twice a week through the summer. The lessons were a great deal and the "class" consists of just her right now, so she's basically getting a private lesson each time. She's only had two lessons so far, but seems to be picking it up fairly quickly. Here are a few pics from her first lesson with Mr. Cristian.

Getting ready for the lesson

Shaking hands with the racket

Getting in position

Learning to swing

Following through

Ready to hit

Success!