March Madness

In the past, I seem to jinx the Jayhawks by posting about March Madness the day of or before their untimely exit from the tournament.  I am not taking the blame this time!  Though, I will say that Dom's enthusiasm for the tournament as a whole sort of dulls our losses...ok, no it doesn't, but it would be nice if it did.

This year just like the last three, we all anxiously watched the Selection Show.  Dom notes the teams and goes to his binders to see how many he already has.  I think they only had to create 20 or so new teams this year.  Will has shown an affinity for this sort of thing and Dom gave him the more difficult logos to draw.

Thursday, March 16th, Dom put the finishing touches on the brackets.  For a change, we actually paid attention to the First Four games.  K-State and Wake Forest were a big draw.  And...I do not remember the other teams, so there you go.

Whatever region KU lands in gets prime location.  Notice the shamrocks bordering the TV.  Molly had to be convinced that she needed to leave the outer edge empty for the teams.  She wasn't too pleased that her decorating was being boxed in...but, got over it and persevered in successfully creating her alternative vision.  The shamrocks are still up, by the way.

Dom also has an online tournament challenge.  He invited several friends and family members.  Notably, Nana and L'Opa sent in their picks.  For a time, Dom was really doing well, but as with millions of others, his bracket was eventually busted.  I guess his checking sports news every morning for the last 5 months didn't give him as much of a leg up as I thought it might.

A bonus this year is that Will has taken an interest in playing basketball in the driveway.  We've had many discussions about why he may be more prone to lose than the kids who have played daily for the last several weeks (not to mention years).  We also had a lovely discussion on his talents versus Dom's talents...but, that seems to be forgotten on a daily basis.  Kids just aren't lining up for checker/chess tournaments these days.  Though, he is getting better at basketball and today advanced to the championship game in the daily tournament.  You would not believe the arguments we have heard about seeding.  I mean...come on!  You are going to have another tournament tomorrow...let's just get playing!  Lately, we've had 6 or 7 entrants in the 1 on 1 games.  I know Dom is dying to find an 8th...

We've come a long way from the year I had to print everything off for Dom.  If only he would work this hard on his penmanship for actual schoolwork...

Tournaments have invaded all aspects of our lives.  Once or twice a week Dom will ask for a 'bye' on his English assignment.  We had a Dr. Mario Tournament last week.  Molly beat me in the first round.  The fact I was playing 10 Medium to her 1 Low did not seem to diminish her triumph.  Will has an algorithm he is working on to create a 'fair' tournament.  We started our 'regular season' today.  I think it will be very similar to the KenPom ratings system.

A perk of Homeschooling is that the kids could stay up to watch the late KU games.  Dom and I stayed up to watch other games as well.  Well, as long as I could stay awake.  There was one night I offered to let him stay up while I went to bed, but he opted against it. 

The downside is we have some pretty sleep deprived kids.  It is an 8 PM bedtime all this week and for the foreseeable future (though later baseball practices make this more of an 8:15 or 8:30 bedtime).  Surprisingly, they really don't give us grief about this.  They know being tired is not preferable to being rested.  And the fact Eric and I soon follow them means they are really not missing out on anything.  Hey, we know being tired is not preferable to being well rested either.  

Next: All the other things that happened in March.