hoop it up!

With Ben's disabilities in the family, we sometimes forget that Lily, being one-handed, also has a disability.  The cool thing is... she makes it really easy to forget that!  The girl pretty much does anything she wants and there's almost nothing she can't do.

So, what does a girl like Lily do when she decides she'd like to try playing basketball?  She plays basketball!

Dylan loves basketball, but has never played on a school team.  As a freshman, he now feels it's too late to start team play, but he spends hours on the driveway with our home hoop, and hours playing NBA video games.  Just over a year ago, Lily started to show an interest in basketball and Dylan latched onto that and started to show her some of the basics.

Now, it is a regular occurrence for the two of them to be playing basketball video games, or one-on-one games on the driveway together.  They are an odd pair on the driveway... Dylan knocking on the door of 6'-0" and his little sister just barely broke 4'-0".  But, she doesn't back down from a challenge! (And, he goes a little easy on her!)

Recently, Lily brought home information about a series of four open gym Saturdays for fourth grade girls interested in playing basketball and asked if she could go.  We let her participate and she proved to have a few skills.  She decided that she'd like to give this year's fourth grade girl's team a try.  Dylan lobbied for her, since he wishes he'd have played when he was younger.  We agreed to let her try it for a year and see what happens.

Today was her first actual game.  She scored four points to help the Lady Tigers win 16-13!

Way to go, Lily!

 

Number 14

Scoring her second basket of the game!