Last Tuesday, our governor gave her “state of the state” address here in Iowa. It was a dumpster fire of rhetoric, right-wing talking points, and insults. I am biased, but however, I’m being pushed further and further left because my moderate voice is being lost in the shouting. While I’m not a Joe Manchin type, I’m getting turned off of politics because my brands of “coming together to talk things through” just isn’t valued any more. So I bitch a lot of Facebook, driving my friends and family bonkers.

It’s all good.

#sureitis

Anyway, Tuesday, I also posted my One Little Word for the year, Thankful. My wife rolled her eyes when she saw that and called me “basic” which was fine. It is a pretty basic word, but one I need to remind myself about time after time.

Wednesday presented that time where I could use it. Wednesday mornings are early practices, so I was up, made cinnamon rolls, coffee for my wife (because I love her, eye rolling at all), and got going to the gym. I had eight girls show up, which is amazing because at the beginning of the season, I was luck to get four. Success breeds success, so girls see they have a chance to be a good team in the area and are starting to show up. We played hard and they were tired on the way out of the gym.

#alwaysapositivesign

My classroom is the breakfast spot, so rolls were devoured and almost a gallon of chocolate milk drank, which is all good. The best of all, the girls hung out together. I noticed this at the tournament last weekend as well, they were a team. They sat together watching other teams play. This has not always been the case. The first few practices, they’d come, eat, and leave, which was fine, but they’d never talk with each other. In the past, this was the norm. Part of the reason they’ve not until now is because my past teams have been all one grade level. Right now, I have 6th, 7th, and 8th graders together. When I call them my hodge podge of a team, I’m not kidding, so for them to sit and talk as a group is a big deal!

Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t cliques, which are hard to separate, but there is progress. And for the first time last week, I felt like they trusted each other. Our first tournament was an asskicking of epic proportions by two other teams because we were just thrown in together without a practice time. Our second one, we only had five girls, so that was tough by itself. This past tournament, they played as a unit and really moved together as one.

So, thankful cannot begin to describe how I felt see that last Saturday, then to see them togehter again Wednesday morning. Yes, middle school is tough and my good feelings didn’t last as long as I’d liked, but I felt good most of the day because of these girls.

Each team is different, and for that I am thankful and I’m thankful they are seeing the value in each other.

We all could take a lesson from them! 🙂