I'm A Proud Mom

I'm very proud of Kayla and Emily. They have been taking Karate since September. They have enjoyed it very much until about a month ago. They began to get very discouraged. Their karate instructor had been handing out medals at the end of each class and Kayla and Emily hadn't earned a medal yet. At this point, some of the other kids had received the medal a couple of times. Kayla and Emily felt bad and wanted to stop taking karate. Russ and I told them before signing them up that they had to commit to continuing to go to karate for the whole year. Quitting in the middle when it got hard or boring or whatever other reason wasn't an option. Both girls still wanted to take Karate, so we signed them up and it was all good up until this point. Now I can understand their frustration, but we didn't let them quit. Instead we encouraged them to continue and practice at home. We had some tears and some fits, but they continued to go. And a couple of weeks ago, they each earned a medal and on that same day, they also advanced from a white belt to a yellow belt. They were so excited when they ran out to the car to show me. I was thrilled for them and I was thrilled to see how excited they were. But I told them that what made me so proud of them was not that they got the medal or that they got their yellow belts, but that they kept going and did their best. That's what counts the most! Anyway, thanks for letting me brag. It's the best thing in the world to see your kids keep going even when it tough and do their best and to succeed! I will try to remember to take some pictures of them with their medals and their yellow belts. Now they are all excited and talking about when they advance to their orange belt!