Golden Child

It is amazing that my child isn't the most stuck-up, snobby kid that has ever walked the face of this Earth. Don't get me wrong, he does have his "proud" moments, but, for the most part, he is quite humble. I swear though, that kid can do anything. Maybe it's the only-child syndrome (he really does have those characteristics since he's 9.5 years older than the twins) or even the oldest-child syndrome. Anyway, let me live vicariously through him for a moment and share what an awesome kid he is! Anyone who knows Bailey knows he is the most polite, respectful, trustworthy kid.....really, he is. Okay, ya I know this is a mom's perspective, but humor me :o) Okay...background...straight A's all through school (nothing ever less than an A on a report card), in the gifted education program every year, taking Algebra in 6th grade, just an academic dream......he's done the whole musical instrument thing (piano) and did very well, his passion has been baseball (he does well, certainly not the strongest player on the team...that's okay though), has tried basketball (not a great player), tried football for the first time last year (did very well...surprisingly...actually won MVP for his team at the end of the year over all the other veteran players who had been playing since they were little wee kids.....coach said he's a natural leader and could always count on Bailey to keep the team focused and make sure the plays happened).....then there was the whole student council president thing, again, totally awesome....okay, here's the newest proud mom moment.....Bailey started playing tennis last summer. He did a few week-long group lessons and has been taking weekly group lessons since. He plays/practices 1-2 hours a week....not much. Well, his group coach has been working with him and told him to enter the youth tournament to get some real playing practice. Well, Bailey's the type that doesn't care if he loses (nope, not like his mother at all in that way) and just wants to try. So, we show up to look at the brackets about 30 minutes before the tournament started. He was the only 12 yr old, so they had to bump him up with the older ones or bump him down to the younger ones. Honestly, since he's only been playing 8 months, it would have been much more fair to bump him down. Well, they bumped him up to the 13-14 yr olds....okay, whatever! Well, there were an odd number of kids, so Bailey got the bye for the first match (only 1 set matches....thank God). Well, somebody didn't show up, so that girl won by forfeit. Bailey watched her warm up with her friends, and I thought he was going to cry. She's 14, in 8th grade, and has been playing a couple of years. She's not AWESOME, but she's better than he is, and her serve is much more refined than his is. He still double faults alot. Anyway, she serves first...he breaks her. He serves...she breaks him. I thought, oh Lord, this is going to be a long match. The only good thing I'm thinking at this moment is that there is no tie breaker, it's the first one to six.....Bailey won the first one, so he has the advantage if they keep breaking each other. Well, they didn't....she was winning 4-1 at one point....well, he came back and it was 5-5 and she was serving for the match. I was getting excited. He won! He beat her! He was so psyched!!!! I was so proud of him. So, he went into the winners bracket automatically since he had a by. Everyone else had played 2 games, and he had only played 1. He watched the "champ" play twice and kill her opponents.....it wasn't looking good for Bailey :o( The twins were there with me during the championship game, so I wasn't able to keep an eye on the match like I wanted to do. I saw the beginning, and it was 1-1....okay....good start. I missed the end of the next two games and motioned over to Bailey asking if it was 2-2, he said it was 3-1....I thought oh crap.....I saw him win the next game and I wanted to confirm the 3-2 score....he said, no mom, it's 4-1......I almost screamed. I thought he was losing 3-1 and then went up to 3-2....no, he was ahead 3-1 and jumped to 4-1!!!!!!! WOWWWWW!!!!!! Okay, this is getting long, to make it short, he won the next game to make it 5-1, she won the next 2 games to make it 5-3, and then he beat her! He won the tournament for the 13-14 year old bracket! He just turned 12 less than a month ago and has been playing less time than any of those other chumps :o) Okay, see why I have to brag on my Golden Child???????? The twins and Bennett have some huge shoes to fill.....Bailey has set every bar so high for them. It will be so hard not to compare them.....but, really, I know there is no comparison. It's just amazing. He really is. I'm just so glad that he doesn't expect to win and do well at everything. He was totally expecting to lose his first two games and be done today. When he won the first game, he thought he'd lose the next game and then play in the losers bracket. He was okay with that.....which is good. I could have a real monster on my hands if all of his success went to his head. His newest thing right now is trying to get into Space Camp!!!!! Again, a far-fetched goal, but this is Bailey we're talking about....you never know!!!!!!




Here's Bailey with the other finalist :o) That's who he beat to win. The shirt should say, "I won a tennis tournament and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" hahahahaha.....that's okay.....it's was a free tournament. You can bet he's hooked now and will enter every youth tournament he can get in!!!!!!