Cade and Ella had their first piano recital this weekend. They’ve been playing for about 9 months now – you can read my first blog post on the subject here. On one hand, it was two hours spent listening to (mostly) other parents’ kids struggling through basic songs on various instruments… not tops in entertainment value. But on the other hand, it was supporting my own kids as well as all the others from Sierra Madre Music (which is a great program with really great teachers) in their artistic endeavors. And that was pretty awesome.

You could see the butterflies in every single child before they started and while they performed, though only one refused to go on when his name was called – and joy of joys, it wasn’t one of mine! Yet to a child, from the flash of a smile to the puffed-out chest bows some of them took, you could feel their sense of relief and newfound pride once they were finished. That was really cool.

Cade and Ella each approached their respective performances just as I would have expected based on their personalities. Ella went first and was very “in the zone”. She has been working hard on playing without looking at her hands and that’s just what she did, staring stony-faced, straight ahead, as if in a trance, only becoming aware of everyone else and breaking into a grin at the very end. Cade went next and was a bit fidgety as the nerves coursed through his body. I was nervous for him, too. He was very aware of everyone else in the room from beginning to end but he made it through and I couldn’t have been prouder of either of them.

My kids got to experience music from a different vantage rather than just lessons or practice. They got to feel that pre-performance anxiety, overcome their fear and rise to the challenge in spite of it, and know the thrill of bravery and definitive accomplishment when it was all over but the ovation. As a parent, watching that sequence unfold within each of them and seeing their ultimate success was what it was all about for me. So now I’m (mostly) looking forward to their next recital.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you know my son Cade has struggled at times, and triumphed at others, with school. His academic challenges have mainly been in reading and writing. Yan and I finally made the decision to pay for an educational assessment when it became clear that even with outside tutoring and extra work at home, he is continuing to fall further and further behind in those areas.

We lined Cade up with a local expert, put him through several days of testing, and just received the results last week. We are still trying to digest exactly what it all means for Cade, but the short of it is that Cade is considered twice exceptional. I had never heard that term before. Even my parents, life-long educators, didn’t know what that meant. Basically Cade is on both ends of the spectrum. He is both gifted and has a learning disability. If the spectrum is a bell curve, most kids are in the middle, some are on the outlying ends as either gifted or learning disabled, but only a small percentage test out as both.

It’s obvious that learning disabled kids face challenges in school. It may not be as obvious that gifted kids also face their own set of challenges (it’s probably very obvious, however, if you are the parent of a gifted child). But the kids with both sets of challenges have, what seems at first blush at least, an overwhelming, insurmountable hill to climb. Their unique challenges, wrapped in contradictions and enigmas, are confusing, frustrating, and exhausting – both for the children as well as their parents.

In our beginning research we see so much of Cade in what we’re reading about twice exceptional kids. Many of his struggles, behaviors, and traits are becoming much clearer. We’ve had several “aha!” moments in fact. But of course there are even more questions now, too. I want Cade to celebrate and cultivate his extraordinary abilities. And I don’t want him to feel ashamed or embarrassed about his learning disabilities. I want him to embrace the whole of himself, to understand his own intellect and emotions, to believe in himself, and to overcome his unique challenges in life – as we all must.

My boy is exceptional. I have known that all along. But now understanding more of what makes him so, and gaining a clearer picture of how it influences his interactions with – and interpretations of – his world, I can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief and focus on helping him get equipped to meet and master the life he has in front of him. I’ll keep you posted.

Aloha!

My family and I are spending this week on Hawaii’s big island. Every year about this time Yan attends the Omni annual meeting – Omni is a national purchasing and marketing network of independent plumbing wholesalers. For those of you who don’t know, Yan’s family is in the plumbing business. Part of her “job” is to attend the Omni annual meeting each year and I always go along for the swanky resorts, the over-the-top food, and the exotic locales. This year, since it was in Hawaii, we decided to bring the kids and make an extended family vacation out of it.

This is my first trip to the big island and it really is incredible. In fact, I’ve already had one of the best days of my life here. Saturday we chartered a boat. But not just any boat. We chartered a US Navy Special Warfare craft – the same boat used by Navy Seals – from Wild Hawaii Ocean Adventures. Their boat is one of only three in the world sold by the navy as military surplus and the only one available for civilian use. Just spending the day on the water aboard that amazing vessel was worth the charter fee alone. But there were so many bonuses packed in I still can’t stop smiling.

Let me backtrack just a bit. We’re staying at the Waikoloa Beach Resort, a property as beautiful as it is immense. It has its own natural lagoon, in part of which they keep dolphins and offer “dolphin encounter” swimming for a price. We knew that was available and had talked with the kids about the possibilities of swimming with dolphins before the trip. Then when we visited the dolphin area on Friday, Cade voiced what it seems we were all thinking. He said, “that’s not very much room for them to swim around in… it seems kind of mean to keep them here.” Indeed, there wasn’t much room for them at all and we decided not to support that endeavor.

Back to Saturday on the boat: we were hoping to spot some whales. We were only out of the marina about 10 minutes when we spotted a pod of dolphins. Our driver turned the boat on a dime (have I mentioned how amazing this boat was?) and put us directly in the dolphins’ path. We quickly donned our snorkel gear and over the side we went. In short order we were surrounded by dolphins. There were hundreds of them, around us and below us. It was a bit surreal and just a bit unnerving. But the bottom line is that it was remarkable. Here we were snorkeling with hundreds of wild dolphins in their natural habitat. Wow.

Once the pod had moved on we scrambled back aboard and resumed our search for whales. It wasn’t long before we spotted our first humpback. Then another, then another. Soon they were almost every direction we looked. We saw dozens of them. Some as close as 50 or 60 feet. Amazing creatures to experience up close. And oh my gosh, they are enormous! Eventually we wound up at Kealakekua Bay marine preserve where we snorkeled on the most amazing reef I’ve ever experienced. Yan dived the Great Barrier Reef in Australia before we met and she said Kealakekua Bay was in the same class. Another wow.

On the way back to the marina we took a side trip into (yes into!) some lava caves, got a taste of just how maneuverable the boat really was (Yan and I were a little worried Cade and Ella would lose their grip and go overboard the g-forces were so strong from the slaloms, 360s, and 40 to 0 stops in the blink of an eye), and paused to drift along in the middle of a school of hammerhead sharks (it was amazing and slightly uncomfortable watching their dorsal fins circle the boat and see their shapes in the water, complete with their distinctive cephalofoil heads, just a few feet away – man those are some big fish!). Wow, wow, and wow!

So yes, it was an incredibly cool day. But the best part, hands down, was experiencing it with the three people I love most in the world. Mahalo, Hawaii!

Cade absolutely HATES to lose. Okay, in all fairness, so do Ella, Yan, and I. So I guess it’s more accurate to simply say Cade CAN’T lose. I mean it really ruins his day. I love that he’s so competitive. In fact, I would worry if losing was no big deal to him. But I also worry that he has such trouble managing defeat. Life, after all, shows no mercy when beating us up and knocking us down.

Our family likes to play games together. They always start off so fun. But as soon as Cade suffers a setback be it losing a turn, having to go back a space, or even not getting the highest die roll, things deteriorate rapidly. I often find myself saying to him, “Games are supposed to be fun; if games just make you angry than we probably shouldn’t play.” That seems to help because he really does want to play.

Fast forward to Saturday as I was watching my beloved Chiefs (I was a Chiefs season ticket holder my 10 years in Kansas City and there is no team in the sporting world I’m more passionate about) play the Patriots in the playoffs. The Patriots are not only good at playing football, they are also good at cheating at football – or maybe not, since they’ve been caught cheating so many times. But either way, I knew the Chiefs were going to have a tough challenge in front of them.

And they did. The Chiefs were trailing late in the game and with time slipping away, so were my dreams of the Royals and Chiefs being back to back world champions. I became emotional. I yelled. I even swore. I was fixated on the television, absorbed in my own little world of pain. Then Cade’s voice broke through, “Daddy, football is supposed to be fun; if it just makes you angry you probably shouldn’t watch it.”

He didn’t say it with the sarcasm an adult might have laid in while pointing out my hypocrisy. No. He said it matter-of-factly and with genuine concern. The simple truth he recycled back to me pulled me right out of my funk. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself (and see clearly – for like the millionth time – that I am so often responsible for the behaviors I see in him) and hug him. I thanked him for his advice as I realized he really does listen to me. He internalizes what I say and can even apply it right back to me when appropriate to do so.

The Chiefs went on to lose the game but in the great scheme of things it did not matter. My son helped me get over it immediately and gain valuable perspective. I’m just not sure which one of us teaches the other more.

I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. I played little league baseball there (with my dad as my team’s coach). And I spent many a summer day out at the municipal ballpark watching the Wichita Aeros, a triple-A farm club for the Cubs and Expos. So baseball was a part of my life – a big part, in fact – from early on.

The Kansas City Royals were the closest major league team to Wichita and we would take a family trip up to Kauffman Stadium (called Royals Stadium back in those days) once a year to watch the Royals play. I also remember my father buying me a clock radio and letting me fall asleep to the radio at night – as long as I was listening to a Royals game. I’m not kidding.

I moved to Kansas City, Missouri in my early twenties. During the ten years I lived there I was at the stadium for the Royals’ home opener exactly ten times. I never missed it. I was also at the park for a handful of other games each and every season. In short, I’ve been a Royals fan my whole life.

As you might imagine, I am ecstatic about them winning the World Series over the weekend. But most of all, I am impressed and inspired by just how resilient the Royals were this series, this post-season, and this year in general. After losing a heartbreaker in game seven of the World Series last season, the Royals came back to win it all this year. After being down late, in seemingly countless games this post season, they hung in there, never gave up, and found a way to come back and win most of them.

So, yes. I’m thrilled they won. But what makes me really proud as a Royals fan, and what I hope my kids remember about the 2015 Royals, is that they – as much as any team ever has – embodied the spirit of “never quit.” They could have hung their heads low and felt sorry for themselves after game seven last year. They could have played the blame game and been the victim at many points during this season. They could have packed it in and waited for next time during several of the playoff games they were just a few outs away from losing.

But they never did quit. Not for a moment; not a single member of that team. And they ended up coming back and winning most of the games they were on the verge of losing. And because of that resilience and determination, they are now world champions. I hope my children get that as the real take away message from this World Series and apply that lesson to their lives. Because that IS life. That’s what it’s really all about: not quitting, no matter what – in sports, in business, in marriage, in parenting, in everything. In life, winning is really just about not quitting.

Go Royals!