verbatim: Update on the Kids: 2

Next up is Pete! His update will likely be the longest, because he has the most going on right now.

Pete is in seventh grade, which is Bar Mitzvah year. (Don't worry, his isn't until June—I have plenty of time to plan it, right? Right?!) He's already been to two Bar Mitzvahs this fall and has two more coming up. As with Steph at this stage, we are aware that our kid has a way more active social life than we do. It's such fun.

So, he's obviously in Hebrew school this year, but it doesn't start for another couple of weeks. And he'll again be doing his community service work, but this year it will be at Rosie's Place! The soup kitchen he worked at last year was great, but there ended up being some conflicts with other groups who volunteered there, and our kids hardly ever got to do anything. So this year they will be sometimes cooking food and other times serving food at Rosie's. I think it will be great. He also starts his own Bar Mitzvah tutoring sessions next month.

School is going well. He likes (most of) his teachers and is handling the work just fine.

The big deal this fall is soccer. Pete is doing the city travel team again this year, and he is with some of his old teammates as well as some new ones. His coach is outstanding—probably the best coach he's ever had in any sport. But more importantly, sometime between last year and this year, Pete took a huge leap up in skill, speed, game sense, foot work, and everything else that goes along with it. I don't really know much about soccer, but Andy does, and he is just astonished—and delighted. He says he could watch this kid play soccer all day long.

And the really big deal is that Pete made the middle school team, which is something of a coup for a seventh-grader. That means that he has travel team 3 times a week (2 practices and 1 game) and school team 4 times a week (some combination of practices and games). If you think that that's an awful lot of soccer, you are right. And you are not even the one driving him back and forth to all of these fields. But he is loving it.

However, a few weeks ago, Pete started complaining of heel pain. Some of his friends mentioned something called Sever's Disease. (Man, I hate the word disease! It's a syndrome, or a condition, but not a fricking disease!) I consulted Dr. Wiki, and it might as well have just said "Pete's Disease." To wit: "Sever's disease ... is the most common cause of heel pain in the growing athlete and is due to overuse ... of growth plates of ... the heel ... with the majority of patients presenting between 10 and 14 years of age." And so on, all of it describing Pete to a T. Other websites concurred, and all suggested stretching, ice packs, and orthotic inserts.

The pain started migrating to his ankles, to the point that he was visibly limping and had to be taken out of the game on Saturday! He was miserable! We got him some generic orthotic inserts yesterday and stressed the importance of stretching and icing, and he said that the pain wasn't so bad at practice today. Meanwhile, he has an appointment at the end of the week with a podiatrist to see what else we can do—maybe custom orthotics or some other kind of cleats?

The good news is that if this is indeed Sever's, it's neither harmful nor permanent—just painful and frustrating! Here's hoping we can get rid of the pain so he can have a great season. He is so excited to be on both teams and really excelling at this sport.

Pete has given up the sax, which is a disappointment but not a surprise. And the drums, which is mostly a relief. I hope he will find a way to incorporate music into his life at some point in the future.

Other than all of that, Pete is happiest when he is hanging out with his buddies, particularly if they are riding bikes. This summer was the first time Pete really took to his bike. He'd ride to the pool, to Starbucks (just like when we were kids, right?), to his friends' houses, or just around the neighborhood. He loves the freedom of just announcing that he's going for a ride, and I love that we live in an area where it's safe for him to ride around alone, and where there are desirable destinations that don't require riding on or across a highway.

And that is Pete. Tomorrow is Julie's turn. (And yes, I promise to post current photos, per Scott's comment yesterday!)