Props due

After a relatively lazy Sunday, I am still in recovery mode from my 15-hour day with Natalie and her team members at the Mock Trial competition. They did not, in the end, win. They lost in the Regional final to a team of home schoolers who are apparently the children of lawyers, for whom Mock Trial is apparently like the Olympics. They were almost flawless, if a little smug.

The amazing and beautiful thing was the speed with which Natalie and her teammates accepted the loss and turned positive. In the car they were all effusively professing their love for their teammates and for Mock itself, though there was a little frustration with some of the specific judges' scoring. Of the third attorney beside Natalie and her fellow senior, a freshman, who was a little meek and unpolished, and who probably dragged their score down, all they could say was how good she was going to be. I was nothing but proud of Natalie and friends.

I am also, I must say, most impressed with the stamina of all my fellow parents who cart their kids around weekend after weekend and then go to work on Monday. For various reasons I won't dig into here, Mary and I have been somewhat spared this fate, and often have two-day weekends at home, not infrequently involving naps for your boy. I am utterly spoiled.