Archery Attempt

Some friends of ours have a little archery range in their backyard. When Robert heard about that, he nearly flipped with disbelief. "Really?! You can shoot real arrows at stuff?! REAL arrows?! When can we go?!"

We brought the whole family for a little archery session. Matthew and James didn't care. At all. Zero interest. Maybe even some fear in there. That's okay, though, because the bows were a bit large for them. Alice tried it now and then, but thought it would be more fun with a bunch more friends. I tried it and smacked my forearm really, really hard with the bow string (forgot to bend my elbow). Bobby had just cut his knuckle open the night before (6 stitches at the ER...yay!) so he wasn't shooting at all.

That left Robert. Totally chill Robert. He's not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, so the only way to tell he's REALLY excited about something is how he focuses on it: 1) he asks about it every 5 minutes, 2) he builds his own target out of cardboard and tape, and 3) even James' pestering can't put him in a bad mood.

Focus.

He pretty much shot arrows the whole time we were there. By the end, he was loading his own arrows and even taking steps back from the target to test his skill. Every single arrow that went in, he would marvel at how deep it had gone. He observed that less dense targets let the arrow go in deeper. Bobby got lucky and took this video of Robert's favorite shot from the whole experience.



It seems like everything Robert tries these days, he loves: reading, math, swim, piano, archery. He could do NONE of these things 6 months ago. Now he likes ALL of them. He's experiencing a bit of a personal renaissance, I think. He's figured out that he can try new things, work on them, and improve. That's something I STILL struggle with quite often ;) Robert's helping me change, though. These kids are good for me in so many ways.