My Son the Silver Medalist :-)

I didn't blog, didn't write all weekend...and for good reason. My son (who is eight) took second place in his weight class in the league at an all-day wrestling tournament yesterday! The kid had a pretty rough season (this is only his second year in wrestling and last year, he was too young to wrestle for his school, so he only had one official bout outside of school). He won his first two matches of the year, then kind of lost his enthusiasm when he was beaten pretty badly, and started losing match after match.

His dad and I gave him pep talk after pep talk. But he woke up yesterday morning, wanting to quit, really down about the whole thing. I told him he had everything he needed to win, from neck to toes, but he had to work on the one last muscle that was holding him back--in his brain (and that's true. The kid's a pretty darn good wrestler, he just lost the winning spirit). Something clicked at some point, because by the time he got onto the mat, he had changed.

He beat his first opponent, a kid who had beat him twice this season. I cried :-)

Then in his second match, he pinned the kid. I really, really cried, because this was my son's first pin of the season. You should have seen my kid's face. Beaming from ear to ear, totally transformed, proud as punch of himself, a true champ.

He went on to the championship round, but the kid he had to wrestle was a lot heavier, a year and a grade ahead of him, and my kid got pinned pretty quick, which was okay. My son came in second, got a silver medal, and for a kid who had gone from thinking he was the worst in the world to becoming the second overall in his weight class, this was just...incredible.

And a very nice way to end the season :-)

Shirley