I learned a lot tonight about Ruby Bridges. The Daughter has a family project. We have to create a person book from construction paper. TBD has been working pretty hard on the artistic side of things... ensuring all sides are even, paper is cut to par (*sigh*). I started reading the requirements and found the "book" part of it. There were 6 direct questions to answer about the person. I began asking The Daughter the questions. She really believed in her answers. She explained how Ruby Bridges helped the world and how she picked her because she was a girl and she was strong. I did a quick search trying to find a picture of Ruby Bridges for the artistic side when we discovered that Ruby Bridges has her own website and does speaking engagements. The Daughter was fairly amazed to find that Ruby Bridges was "real" (i.e., not dead).

The Daughter had a basketball game today. She made the first basket and I finally got to see it. Awesome. Her team did really well but all of us parents were amazed at the other team. This was the second engagement with them. The first ending 40 to 2. TBD explained that the last game the other team had one good girl and were a basic team of one. Today's game was no exception. The theme of the game was "Marissa is open!" Marissa was aggressive and good. We noticed consistently the theme of going in and grabbing the ball and doing, what I thought, ended up in a toss up. But everytime it happened, the team grabbing got the ball. I noticed our girls weren' doing this and I came to believe they were as confused as the parents. At some point, a parent on our side asked why the star of the other team was never cycled out. At 6, snuffy basketball, you wouldn't think you'd have to worry about these things. She was shuffled out for 15 minutes and played the rest.

In truth, none of this bothered me. I was concerned about the impression it might make but I was glad my child wasn't on that team. On her team she's learning that fast, small, good shooters, girls that can dribble, they are all important and everyone gets a chance to get better. I would be upset if my child never got a chance at the ball because the object of the game was to get the ball to Marissa.

So tonight I was taking a bath and The Daughter was keeping me company. We talked about Ruby Bridges and some other odds and ends when she brought up the basketball game and, would you know it, but she brought up the exact same issues. Why were they allowed to always grab the ball why didn't the other girls on the other team get to play. Were they supposed to be grabbing the ball too? I told her my best advice was for her to talk to her coach about it. Ask him what the rules are and, if they are allowed, then go for it.

The stress level is still on maximum overdrive. Tonight I found a few glimmers of normalcy... but only a few before the world imploded once more.