Wrestle Mania

I'm ashamed of myself that I haven't even blogged about Kaleb starting wrestling.  I think he's been going now for more than a month and has participated in 6 or more matches.  It's been an interesting experience, not really what I had imagined.  I'm not sure he loves it just yet, in fact, sometimes I think he hates it though he doesn't ever express that.  He's always excited for practices and especially pumped about the meets but the minute he steps on the mat, he's scared out of his mind and most often in tears.  The amazing thing about it is that he continues to wrestle while the tears are freely flowing.  You'd think he would just lay down and give up and get pinnned just to get it over with but he does the exact opposite. He fights and works his hardest until he's physically and emotionally drained.  Up until Thursday he's lost every single one of his matches.  Some of them he was pinned within a very short amount of time and others he's made it all 3 rounds and never gotten pinned but was pretty much the underdog (literally, he's spent most of his time underneath.  But, things changed Thursday night and he went out ready to win against a kid that he lost to a couple of weeks ago.  He took him down really quick and then pinned him, in fact it happened so fast, I didn't even pull the camera out.  I'm so ticked because his expression was so funny. He wasn't even sure that he'd won until they held his arm up as the winner.  It's pretty funny because when the season first started, he said to me one day, "what's the big deal about winning, all they do is hold your arm up."  Funny kid!  Anyway, he's pretty proud of all of his medals he's recieved but especially proud of this medal he earned for actually winning!  Who knows what will happen at Saturday's match but I'm just glad that he's had a taste of winning, just so he knows how it feels.  Now I wonder how long it will take him to get past the tears that so freely flow the second he's on the mat.  Way to go, Buddy!

Funny side note, DJ has Jordyn and Kaleb matched up as wrestling partners here at home.  Things were going really well until Kaleb by accident bloodied her nose and fattened her lip.  Needless to say, Jordyn has been a little gun shy about returning to our home wrestling mat (carpeted living room that is not very big)!  Porter and Kamryn spend most of their time wrestling one another now so Kamryn keeps asking me when she'll be able to start wrestling:)  Yikes, I don't think so!

Doesn't he just look thrilled? :)

Look out for these two! 

Now that's more like it!  Kaleb does have shorts on, his shirt is just super long:)

DJ giving Kaleb some pointers before the match!  He's determined to make a wrestler out of Kaleb.  Not so much for the reasons you might think but more because he always says that he learned some of his greatest lessons as a wrestler.  He learned to be a hard worker, not to blame others for failures, self discipline, etc.  I must say that he is all of these things and more and if Kaleb turns out like his dad, he'll be a great man!