She and Danielle moved in with us the summer before her 7th grade year and there were volleyball try-outs that summer. She really wanted to make that team and meet some people from school because she was having to change schools with the adoption. There were something like 30 girls that tried out and only 14 spots....Savannah was not one chosen. She was up in her room afterwards and I thought she might be upset over the news, but when I asked her about it she just said, "Well, I know I am good at something...I just have to find out what it is!" (What if we could say that every time we met some kind of failure or disappointment....we would not waste so much time wallowing in self-pity, right!?)
Fast-forward a little and she decided she wanted to play the flute...so, a friend had an old one we could have and we got it all fixed up for her....she played around with it a little over the summer and then we signed her up for band. OK, you have to forgive us for this because we had no idea....we signed her up for 7th grade band because she was going into 7th grade....make sense? It did to us, however, since she had never played before, she was supposed to be in 6th grade band....OOOOOPS! By the time the band people realized our error, she had already been in the class for some time....so, she kept plowing through...trying to catch up with the other kids who had a year on her.
She worked really hard and caught up...and got all 1st's at Solo/Ensemble. Then, when 7th grade was over....she says to us, "I heard the fingering for the saxophone is similar to the flute." So, she picked that up over the summer between her 7th and 8th grade years...now she plays flute in concert band and saxophone in jazz band...crazy right! She also realized she's not really a speedy runner....but, she has a good endurance and she has been running Cross-Country and some distance events for Track....I just love watching her find herself...find her gifts...realize her potentials....eliminating some things, but embracing others....what a great age!
Back to Einstein for a second...sorry, I just love so many of his quotes and I didn't list this one in the Brownie Blog....I actually think I should read a whole book about him, so I am not just picking up all these fragments of wisdom, but am able to put them in to context.
Isn't that great...(not that it believes it is stupid, silly)?! But, that sometimes we give up after one failure and we develop this "loser" perception about ourselves that is totally NOT TRUE....instead of really looking for the things we are gifted to achieve. Pssst.....Jump in the water, little fishy.
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