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Mikaela and Katrianna are just like the Williams sisters. Yes, that's right, so similar to Venus and Serena, it's hard to know where to begin...

Well, you see, Mikaela and Katrianna are also sisters. And best friends. They spend nearly all their time together. Homeschool together. Travel together. Are too two together? Really, like V&S in every way.

Only M&K can't play tennis. No. Not at all. But besides that one little exception -- of sharing 40 Grand Slam titles between them -- our daughters could be the identical twins of the Williams sisters.
 

They just don't want to be. Not that we haven't tried. And it's not that the Easter Bunny didn't do his part ... nor is it the foot fault of Coach Grandma, who gave them several enthusiastic lessons: to Mikaela, on how to serve and volley, & to Katrianna, on how to scoop up the balls & NOT throw them as far away as possible. (Granted, watching those funny men on the next court rushing the net and, just as they were going for a smash, make contact with one of those errant balls underfoot - well, let's just say, in Katrianna's humble opinion, that was a sport in and of itself.)



Of course, tennis wasn't the only game in town. Or even their first athletic endeavor. I mean, who creates those kinds of expectations for someone who has just come into the world under 24 inches tall? (OK, besides Andre Agassi's parents?) Not us, we were fair. Without any pressure, we patiently let them grow to 2'6." Then we went with basketball.

And, just for the record (is that American or world?), it wasn't like we christened Mikaela with sports in mind. At least not her 1st placed name. Instead, I casually selected her middle name for its sporty nickname potential, something that could be easily shortened and then chanted by stadiums full of adoring fans. That way, her entire identity did not have to be wrapped up in being an athlete. Thoughtful, no?

OK, so she did attend Houston Comets games before she was actually born. Her first shoes were high tops. She dined exclusively on the Breakfast of Champions (mom's milk, supplemented with Special K). She had a Michael Jordan coloring book. And we'd insisted on using Hakeem Olajuwon's brand of drinking water for her baptism.
In terms of nothing-but-net gains, it seemed all was going well. By the tender age of two, Mikaela had learned to slam dunk - her balled up socks - into the Sheryl Swoopes mini hoop rim set over the laundry basket. A guarded Cynthia Cooper [Mom] often assisted with 2 pointers. She even learned to count by keeping score during these grueling five-minute shootarounds. But, most importantly, she gained the confidence & assertiveness necessary for trash talking during pick-up games (ok, that might be unrelated... reminding her dad to take out the garbage is not really the same thing, is it?).

When she was finally ready for Show Time, we presented her with a real hard b-ball (though technically it's still smaller than "real" since it's for girls, pro-playing WNBA 'girls'?). Swish! This is fun! It was easier to dribble, shoot, pass, catch -- until she stretched her hands out and misjudged - Ow! jammed her finger. She responded as any future hall of famer would: shock, anger, disbelief, all culminating in a dirty look shot in my direction. I encouraged her to try again. So she did. Seconds later, Ow! sprained the very same knuckle. I explained that it was just part of the game, better shake it off. So, again, she did. Only not the injury, the whole sport. Just like that, her basketball playing years were over, her last ever jam session done.

[By the time Katrianna was old enough to play, it was too late - she got the "benefit" of her big sister's experience - for Mikaela, unlike some other has-been hoopsters, smooth-moved into retirement with maturity and grace, content in her new role as a tv color commentator: "O my, what excitement! See all those grown ups rolling around on the floor after a silly ball?... Hey, look - there's that player who got a bloody, broken nose and has to wear a plastic face mask. Now listen, Katrianna, Mom says that's just part of the game... Let's watch him try to shake it off!"]
 
Then there was soccer. Though I never had any aspirations to be a "soccer mom," Chris wasn't about to let that stop him: Take notice, playgroup moms, minivan or no minivan, Daddy's little girls were gonna be fútbol stars! I have to admit, he gave it his all, put in 110%, kept his focus, stuck to the game plan, executed at crunch time, never gave up, just wanted it more, took it one game at a time... no, that last one is not true. In fact, he skillfully used his young prodigies to get a pass to watch not just one or two soccer games on weekends, but whole World Cupfuls of games at a time. For instructional purposes. For the sake of our children. He also read to them daily from scripture (Pelé's My Life and the Beautiful Game), requested they respectfully rise from the couch and sing "Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Brasil, Brasil!" every time Ronaldo scored, and, if I proposed that maybe the girls should get back to school (or just go play outside... play some soccer even?), he countered that this was educational: After all, weren't we studying Spanish? And here he was modeling full language immersion, encouraging them to absorb every linguistic nuance this romance language & Univisión's Andréas Cantor had to offer. 

As many rookie parents learn, soccer is the first organized team sport available to 3 year olds - so how difficult can it be? The YMCA emphasizes that a successful season is determined by two factors: 1) everyone plays & 2) everyone has fun. Yet, despite three years of attempts, those impossibly high standards remained elusive for our dear daughters. Then again, who am I to judge? It is quite probable that the girls were getting just as tough a cardiovascular workout running away from the ball as they would have had they actually run toward it. Absolutely, the sum total of exercise was impressive. All that bending, stretching, building up a sweat, straining to reach out & score - that perfect dandelion or clover stem needed to complete the fresh-picked flower necklaces they and their friends were braiding on the sidelines (or, not to stifle their creativity, often right in the middle of the field as the game went on about them). Plus, that doesn't even take into account all of the miles logged while traipsing after butterflies... It did make me wonder, exactly how realistic were the goals we were setting for them - or, for that matter, were those goals occupied by the opposing team's goalies? You know, the ones at the end of the field, girls, where the ball is supposed to go? Wait a minute, Dad -- what ball? Even Chris came to accept, as far as M&K were concerned, soccer would forever be an "away game."
 
We were 0 for 3 with sports. For the love of the game, any game, I decided to throw seven-year-old Mikaela a softball. Spring into action, it was time for Little League! Besides a few rounds of catch with a tennis ball & making sure she didn't knock herself out when swinging a bat (plus showing her how to break in her glove by oiling it, folding it around a ball, placing three rubber bands just so and then sleeping with it under her mattress), I didn't work with Mikaela very much ahead of her inaugural season. We'd been homeschooling for a couple of years & I purposely intended to use this opportunity to let another adult coach her and act as a role model. Not surprisingly, she fared poorly at tryouts. I imagine she was drafted in the last round or two, an afterthought at best.

A few evenings later, I found myself at a champagne reception for parents. It started with a toast: "To the winningest team in the league, for two straight undefeated seasons!" Turned out, amid bites of hors d'œuvres, this was a strategy session. Item #1 (scratch that, the only item) on the agenda: How to manage that again. The head coach boasted he'd exerted all his influence with the board to secure the best practice schedule available - most importantly, one where the weak players would be able to practice on a different field. Nods of appreciation circulated the room. Later, the team mother assured me not to worry, that all the starters made a special point to talk to the other girls between innings in the dugout. Wasn't that nice? Plus, and this was not theoretical, my daughter might not play even one inning in a single game & she could still be guaranteed a first place trophy at the end of the season. Well, thank my lucky stars, Mikaela'd really hit one outta the park this time, hadn't she? Ever so briefly, the mom stared at me, then laughed loudly and suggested, "Now, how's about some more champagne?"

In my own athletic career, I'd made it a practice not to quit. For my daughter, however, I justified that the season hadn't officially begun and perhaps this didn't count because Mikaela had not yet met her teammates (or the bench). Sure, it occurred to me to request a transfer: Please, sir, can you trade my kiddo to the lousy team? Not only would we be pariahs of the league after that, but, if she did end up being good, the potential consequences were even worse: she'd inevitably play for these All-Star coaches eventually and/or, every time she came up to bat, have to subsist on the blue home plate special: daily servings of cheap beanings. The next morning, I stopped by the treasurer's office and explained that something had come up (values, but I didn't specify) and that, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was sincerely sorry that Mikaela would be unable to participate this year (that last part was true, I did feel like one sorry mom for months afterwards). No doubt, it was another missed opportunity for my daughter to win that coveted "good sportsmanship" award - or, if she allowed herself to dream, the "most improved player" plaque - and it was all my fault.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe M&K are not exactly like the Williams sisters. The honest conclusion is that Mikaela & Katrianna are actually just like the Andrews Sisters. Well, except there are only two Sarkar Sisters... And they can't sing.


The following is a petition for enTITLEment allowances:
I know, there are some homeschoolers who are really good sports. So good, in fact, that the very reason they homeschool is to free up more time to devote to training, schooling their adversaries on the court and bringing home(school?) the gold. But, those rare, fast-ballin' pitchmen certainly throw off the curve (or is that the slider rule? Ut oh, I'm getting that sinker feeling again... O, screwball it, this jock jargon is just splitting fingers, runs afoul ball of the law of homeschool averages & will never produce a hit anyhow) for typical 'athletically challenged' homeschoolers, who proudly took their ball and went home schooling...
 Anyway, "Homeschoolers Are Such Bad Sports" was Title number IX - the first eight I thought up couldn't get equal fun-ding & had to be phased out. Along with - and to the dismay of - my conscience's wrestling squad. Hey, gotta make those cuts somewhere.

For Father's Day, a deferential retrospective of our family's beloved Dad -

Early on, thanks to Dad's musical tastes, we discovered that the most soothing, soporific lullabies for infants include any with a walking bass line by Steel Pulse. Then, thanks to the kids' toddler years, we discovered that the favorite band for irie men in their late thirties is The Wiggles. (True, Veggie Tales tunes are also great, but they get Chris too revved up and we have to increase his Ritalin.) 

When she was 3, Mikaela had a lingering cough for a few days following a cold and she milked it for all it was worth - which was, not coincidentally, attention from Mom when her newborn sister was nursing. Chris took charge and strictly forbade any future coughing-for-effect. Of course, it had none other than the predictable, expected result (a parent to anyone but a father): Mikaela's scratchy throat continued for a full year. Satisfied with a parenting job well decreed, Chris complacently left to go to the office every day and I got to take Mikaela to cough at playgroups, parks, nature classes & library storytimes where I received a daily dose of "the look" from complete strangers - what kind of mother would drag around a [not] sick child like that?
 

Their dad has always been a devoted companion for the girls' imaginary play. Each year in December, he would take his place on Santa-Mikaela's sleigh-sofa, squeezing in beside the other elves - MacKenzo, Socko & Katrianna - and fly throughout the land looking for good little girls and boys deserving of presents. Some days, he'd even come home & regale them with news brought directly from Saint Nick himself, who happened to be seen at our neighborhood Target stuffing his "magic Santa pocket" (versatile spandex, Perseus) full of innumerable toys of all descriptions. My, what delightful fun! Until that afternoon when Santa sent a note stating that if a cantankerous Mikaela kept refusing to cooperate with her "very cool dude" father, she'd find only lumps of coal in her stocking on Christmas morn. OH HO, a very original and clever ploy, Chris Kringle! Until Mikaela noticed that Santa's message was written on an Intel post-it note -- exactly the same kind that Mikaela had earlier written "6 AND 3!!!" on & stuck to Chris' computer screen so he would correctly state his daughters' ages when clients asked.
 
 


As a former member of the #1 squad in Houston's premier amateur soccer league, Chris was primed (well, just past his prime) to turn his talents to coaching Mikaela's youth team. He spent practices diligently working with the children to perfect the most important skill in football: how to celebrate a score by stretching out one's arms & running circles around the field yelling ¡Gooooooolllllllllll! like Univision's Andreas Cantor. The kids loved it! Well, loved it at practices anyway, since going 0-8 for two consecutive seasons really did not allow for too many game-time display opportunities. [Check out Chris' soccer blog] 
     
When we started globeschooling, Chris happily moved over to let me take the driver's seat - 15 minutes at a stretch (plus a yawn and then he's usually asleep for the next 15 hours). His main way to prepare for our trips is to plan all the ways he can back out of them at the last minute. Once we're on the road, though, he defies the stereotype about men getting lost & refusing to ask for directions. A 21st century, tech-liberated kind of guy, he not only buys several maps for each trip, but also insists we listen to the GPS voice navigation system (when it comes complimentary on rent cars). That way, he's covered every contingency and when we get lost - as we always do when he's in charge of directions - we can be sure to get lost as quickly and efficiently as possible. Some people go for unlimited mileage; others content themselves with unlimited options for choosing the wrong way to go.

These days, Dad willingly plays Monopoly with the girls. That all-American game that teaches such important values: the value of math fluency in everyday life, the value of money management, the value of planning ahead, and, most importantly, the value of cheating without getting caught. No, that's the old, outdated Monopoly everyone knows. And, frankly, they're tiring of it. So, we're on the waitlist for the new & improved, more realistic edition. Where you still learn the value of cheating, but also the value of getting caught, so you can position your company to receive a government subsidized bailout (in the billions of dollars, not measly Boardwalk thousands) and a golden personal parachute compensation package that'll keep you flying high all the way to your 85th birthday. . .


With respect to Model Parenting, he takes a slightly different approach. Chris leads by counter example. It's a variation on 'Do as I say, not as I do' which he contends builds character by providing the girls a healthy chance to resist negative influences. For downright-bodacious example, although he grew up in India & still has remnants of a British accent, he revels (and rebels) in talkin' like a Texan. To Mikaela's chagrin, he employs every Southern turn of phrase & inflection and drawls out their linguistic delivery. The eye-rolling grammarian can't hardly stand it - "Daaaad, that's a double negative!" (A typical hypo critical tween, Mikaela prefers to be singularly negative instead.) Master of reverse psychology, Chris tells the girls, "Simply find a guy who doesn't do these things - that's the key to a happy marriage, just ask Mom."


For all academic subject(ivitie)s, our homeschooling dad consistently demonstrates that the overwhelming male need to know all the answers supersedes logical thought. He is unable to utter the words "I don't know" in the presence of his children. For the last several years, we've focused on one particular whopper that came to symbolize them all. We were studying the history of flight (getting ready for the girls' first plane ride - can't do anything around here without making it "educational") and Chris explained that the use of Concorde jets had been discontinued due to all of the sonic booms produced when they kept breaking the sound barrier. Now I knew that fuel costs plus ticket prices for the supersonic time-busters had been exorbitant and was also under the impression that safety issues had ultimately grounded them, so I never bothered to check. As any good wife - not to mention educator - would do in this situation, at the speed of sound, I led the children in ridiculing their father (my life's Catcalling). "Oh c'mon, Chris, that's just plane wrong! Exactly how many sonic booms per day were they having with all those Concorde flights to Paris?" From then on, nearly any theory offered by their venerated father on any subject earned the immediate classification of "sound barrier" and was promptly disregarded (after pausing for a traditional moment of derisive laughter). Ahh, how quickly time flies...             
 
In honor of Father's Day this year, the girls begged me to let them guest blog. Their subject? "Sound Barriers" They'd made a list of Dad's best knowledgeable nuggets and were all set to start it off with a Boom! Due to my journalistic integrity, which will allows nothing but strict adherence to the facts, I decided I better google it. Ah ha, I was right, so I called Chris over to look - in the interest of fairness and edification, mind you, not to rub it in. Then, he googled it. Unbelievable, Wikipedia had his back! M&K were undeterred and wanted to proceed with the other 49 irrefutable Dad facts, but the truth is that I was too shook up - dumbstruck, you might even say. What if he was right about the others, too? The girls' list will have to wait until next Father's Day - so we can conscientiously verify its inauthenticities, as well as to allow ample time for researching my Wikipedia conspiracy theory: 1) Chris hacked into their system unbeknownst to the editorial staff, or 2) all of the entries written for Wikipedia are in fact written by fathers similarly afflicted by Sound Barrieritis. I wonder if Oliver Stone is onto this? Honestly, I always thought it was called "mendacity" because men have a much higher capacity to supremely exemplify its many forms. (Hey, anyone seen my hot tin roof? Alas, let she who is without sin cast the first Brick...)

It's the universal truism of fatherhood - there really should be nothing knew under the son (or daughters), should there?

Finally, as Chris likes to remind me several times an hour, this family's blog would not be possible without his generous support, technical know-how and editorial advice. Even Mikaela has noticed his invaluable contributions: "Mom, do you think the people who read your blog miss as many of the jokes as Dad does?"