Lean Green Fightin' Machine

Brandon earned his green belt in Aikido on Tuesday. He has been taking martial arts classes for about 2 years now, and Mark and I are so pleased that he has stuck with it and done such a good job.

Brandon is our stereotypical middle child with all the woes and worries that come along with being sandwiched in between the baby of the family and two talented older sisters. He begged for over a year to be allowed to take karate until we finally signed him up for a class at Mark's gym. The class was small and low-key, and Brandon loved going. We liked his class and their soft-spoken sensei so much that a year later we enrolled Bryce as well. But putting Bryce in the class took all the novelty out of karate for Brandon, and all of a sudden, he was whining that he wanted to quit.

Not only did Brandon want to quit karate but he also seemed to have the 8-year-old's version of a mid-life crisis. He complained that no one loved him, that he wasn't good at anything, and that he didn't have any talents. It broke my heart to watch my sweet, smart, talented boy be so down on himself. One night, after reassuring him that he was talented, I told him that if he didn't want to do karate anymore he should think about what sports or activities did interest him, and that when he figured it out we would look into getting him lessons. For two days, I could tell that Brandon was thinking carefully about his interests. Then, he came to me all excited. He knew what he was interested in. He wanted to take a class, he told me eagerly, that would teach him to use weapons. I just had to smile.

I'm not sure exactly what he was imagining--maybe some kind of youth secret agent training program? I was glad that he was so excited, but I had to tell him that the only place that teaches kids to fight and use weapons was, unfortunately, karate. His face kind of fell a bit, but since then he has seemed to enjoy going to class again, even though Bryce goes too.

With all of us praising Brandon and taking his picture with his new his green belt, Bryce was desperate to show us his stuff, too. He wanted me to get a picture of him doing his "moves." I'm not sure exactly what move this is supposed to be, but Bryce thought he looked pretty awesome. I guess self-esteem really is more about self-perception than reality, isn't it.