This is a great topic. orchid, you come up with some real winners.

I was a major tomboy! Played outside all day every day in the summer. In sixth grade we began organized sports. I played basketball through high school and it was a fantastic part of my teen years.

My kids all grew up playing sports. Oldest played club baseball at Clemson until he graduated last year. Hannelore, and like your boys, he played since he was five and it was a huge part of his life. He soaked it up. Played so much ball, it was crazy. He pitched, played football, volleyball, soccer and basketball. The majority of his friends have always been team mates.

Our daughter also played soccer, softball and a little basketball, but her biggest and best sport was swimming. Could that girl do the butterfly! We'd sit thorugh swim meets for hours to watch her swim a total of seconds or mintues depending how many races she was in. Those were the good old days of hanging out at the pool all day and then goign back at night for meets! Loved it.

And our youngest played soccer and baseball until he fell in love with skateboarding and snowboarding in sixth grade. Then he dropped all organized sports to skate. We've had ramps and rails and you name it in our backyard and driveway. We chaired the committee to get our county to supply skateparks for our youth. Fun, fun. And that is where his love of photography and film developed. They would all phtotograph and film one another while they skated, then make videos and sell them. He eventually stopped skating because you have to be a real daredevil to get great. He quit skating and became the videographer. He's now in film school and loving life.

I think playing sports is a great way to grow up.

Computers and all screens are making kids too sedentary. It scares me.

We are a long way off to grandchildren, but I think our kids will also want their kids to be active.