Common Mom

FINALLY! Whew . . . I can’t believe I made it . . .

Last Saturday was another “beautiful” day for spring soccer in the Rockies. Dude is wearing a rain jacket under his jersey; however, it could have been a t-shirt or parka at any time . . . we had snow, rain, sunshine so warm that everyone took off their jackets, and then hail, all in the course of a one-hour game. Here’s dude playing in the hail

After the soccer game, the kids and I cruised to a birthday party with Queen Taunya. Then we headed back home to set up for Hubby’s birthday party - about 20 people came over to grill out and celebrate with us. A good time was had by all!

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Mother’s Day was great! Jason just couldn’t wait for me to wake up. The minute my eyes opened, he ran out to the living room and came back with a handwritten menu from his restaurant - Chef’s Choice. I’ve eaten there before - it’s very good! All kinds of good things were on his menu - eggs, waffuls, blueberry muffens, pancaks, milk, oringe juce, white grap juce, sasage, bakun - and of course all of it was free for Mother’s Day He even brought in a little ordering pad on a tray so he could take my order in bed. Here he is making my muffins:

Keira came to help out later. She was still sleeping after a late night partying at Dad’s party - and you do NOT want to wake that sleeping giant! Anyway - I love that he’s wearing his apron, and you can see his ordering tray right in front there - yes, he’s conveniently covered up the princess on it

We had a great breakfast! Hubby had to go to work (boo hoo), so the kids played outside all day while I tried to get some work done. Jason informed me that he and Keira were taking me out to dinner, so we cleaned up a bit and headed to BW3 . . . one of my favorite places, and surprisingly (um, not!) not full of Mothers on Mother’s Day We had a wonderful meal and Jason and Keira even paid with the money Hubby had slipped them. Jason realized we had enough left over for ice cream, so off to Maggie Moo’s we went - yummy! A great Mother’s Day!

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Then Monday came - and back to work. The sleeping giant was N-A-S-T-Y! But we got out the door. Right after school we took Duma on a quick walk, packed some lunches for dinner, and headed off to my volleyball match. It was the last match of the season - we won!!! Yeah!!! But, alas, volleyball is over until next fall.

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Tuesday came and was another wonderful day getting Princess out the door. I have no idea what her problem is this week, but if she doesn’t fix it, she’s gonna be grounded for the rest of summer - sheesh! Miserable to live with that one is right now! I had a haircut after work, so again, rushed home, grabbed the kids, and ran to the haircut. Dinner, playing with dog, and rushing to bed ensued.

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Wednesday rolled around a bit too early as always. Dude missed the bus - partly because he was messing around and partly because Princess was being a nightmare and wouldn’t let him brush his teeth. So we take Dude to school, drop Duma off at doggy daycare, and take Keira to school. At approximately 12:00 noon, a sigh of relief was heard from my cube - the house cleaners had arrived at my house and I could feel it from 15 miles away! My wonderful MIL has gotten me a house cleaner once a month for the rest of the year - am I the luckiest person or what?! That’s why I took Duma to doggy daycare - so the ladies could have their way with my house. Soooo nice to come home to a clean house! At lunch I ran to the grocery store and got ingredients to make 8 chicken pot pies with. Dine in Divas is this weekend and Wednesday was my only “free” night to make them. So I stuffed the groceries in the fridge at work (sorry everyone!). Picked up Princess, went home and started making chicken pot pies, picked up Duma, ran through McD’s for dinner, and finished making pot pies around 8:30 p.m. Whew!

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Thursday finally rolled around and it was back to work! Nothing new there - lunch with some ex coworkers was a lot of fun! Pick up Princess, head home, kids head out to play while I box up books and posters to ship for Hubby. The kids thought it would be fun to make a water park in our back yard - a waterpark for lego men that is. We have no grass. So water and our yard makes - mud - and lots of it. Duma, who had just had a bath at doggy daycare Wednesday and was squeaky clean, decided to play with them. The result?

Um ya - you can tell how deep the mud was by the line on her nose If she didn’t look so friggin’ funny I woulda been mad! She was hilarious - it’s like she’s never seen mud before, and actually - maybe she hasn’t! She would dig in the puddle and dig and dig and dig - then she’d stick her nose in it - then she’d stand there and stare with her head cocked to the side, wondering why she couldn’t dig a hole like in other places of the yard - this hole kept mysteriously filling up with water! Thankfully, she’s a lab and water-resistent - so I made her stay out there to dry off so the dirt would just flake off of her fur.

Off to soccer practice after dinner and back home by 7:30 p.m. for jammies, homework, an bed.

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Friday is finally upon us . . . work, soccer practice, and RELAXING after that. Our last week of soccer is tomorrow - kind of a bummer - we’re having so much fun with it this season! But, after that do you know what we have going? N-O-T-H-I-N-G! Really, volleyball and soccer are over, we’re taking a break from gymnastics, and baseball doesn’t start until June 11. So until June 11th, we have not one single solitary weekly commitment on our calendar - a first in, well, ever - I’ve always played volleyball or softball and the kids have had gymnastics and stuff. But nothing until June 11th. We are all SO excited.

So - the week in a nutshell. Next week I get to chaperone Dude’s field trip and pack for our trip to The Black Hills over Memorial Day Weekend. Fun times ahead!!!

Happy weekend to everyone!

Well, soccer started Thursday, right on schedule Ya gotta be ready for anything in April! Keira did not wear a princess dress - it was snowing - but she did put on long underwear to be warm I suggested that maybe she would want to put some pants on over her long underwear

Coach Nick is great with the girls - they had a great time, even in the cold snowy weather!

Here are the Ladybugs/Wild Ponies (they’ll choose next week) at the end of practice

Being the Minnesotan that I am, I love the snow! But, I do hope it’s a bit warmer next week - just warm enough so the snow doesn’t stick to their soccer balls and start making snowman parts as they dribble down the field

As I mentioned earlier, Keira starts soccer practice today. We got an email from her coach last week . . . I was just rereading it to verify time and location and this part made me giggle

“In the meantime, have your girls be thinking of a good team name. Like maybe the Ponies (hint, hint), because Ponies run fast and play hard and have fun!  (I’d like to avoid names that don’t evoke running fast and trying hard.  Already knowing most of the girls, I expect them to want to be the princesses.  I’d like to avoid that.  We don’t want to be thinking of being pretty and twirling, we want to be fast and even a little tough.) I always let the teams pick their own names, if all the girls already want the same name (Ponies? Hint, hint), we can avoid any sadness about our name not getting picked.”

Luckily, my daughter, who wanted to be the Barbies last year, has rediscovered her stash of My Little Ponies and is all about being called The Ponies. I am, however, contemplating sending her to practice in one of her princess dresses today, just to see the look on Coach Nick’s face

Alas . . . soccer season has come to an end. I wasn’t so sure about this coaching gig in the beginning, but I must admit that it was A LOT of fun and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I learned SO MUCH about soccer, it’s amazing. And my little ladybugs were so sweet - I got hugs and thank yous from each one of them, and they gave me a gift card for $30 to Kohl’s! Totally unexpected . . . but I can’t wait to go shopping

Here are my little Ladybugs wearing their medals.

My son’s team had a fun season as well. They moved up an age group, so it was a challange for some of the younger ones to keep up, but they had a great coach. The boys learned a lot and so did I from watching them! Here are the hurricanes sporting their medals.

Now that soccer is over, what ever will I do with my Thursday evenings and Saturdays

Well, the 2nd to last week of soccer is upon us. We have 2 games and 1 practice left. It’s been SO MUCH FUN! Who knew My little ladybugs are doing so well . . . they are undefeated with one tie. All of the games have been fun so far . . . close games with no more than a 3 goal difference between teams. They’ve come a long way - they’re dribbling so much better, actually passing to each other every now and then, playing defense, and remembering where to go for each part of the game - kick off, goal kick, throw-in. Even the girls who didn’t really want to be there are having a good time and learning - it’s so much fun to see! Who knew you could teach little ones so much in just one hour each week. They are like little sponges

They’ve also become social butterflies. Anyone with girls knows what I’m talking about! The first couple weeks, the girls didn’t know each other and were afraid to talk to each other and weren’t afraid to take the ball from each other when scrimmaging. But now that they all know each other, they’ve become a bunch of Chatty Cathies! They are much more interested in socializing about their day at school, talking about the beautiful pretties in each other’s hair, and figuring out who has matching shoes. And apparently, when the girls on the team are now your newest best friends, you are no longer allowed to take the ball from them during a scrimmage, even if you’re on different teams, because as McKinzie put it yesterday “Well, if I go for the ball, that will make her feel bad, and she’s my friend, and I don’t want to make her feel bad.” Can’t argue with that with 4-5 year olds, can ya! I mean really, we spend the first 4 years of our kids’ lives teaching them to share and not take things from others and to be conscious of other people’s feelings. Then we suddenly thrust them on to a soccer field and all that goes out the window - we’re telling them to “steal” the ball and be aggressive and play hard.

So yes, my little attack ladybugs have definitely become social butterflies . . . and I wouldn’t have it any other way

Well, I’m 4 weeks in to Ladybugs Soccer, and we’re having a blast! I will admit that I get a little frustrated at times . . . girls are just different than boys. Really - they are much more flakey. With boys, you had one or two that would just refuse to play - they’d sit down and whine or whatever and refuse. But with girls, they want to be out there, but they’re always looking at something else, or hugging someone else, or pointing out the beautiful dandelions, or running across the park to pet a dog. My favorite is when we’re scrimmaging and one girl falls down, whether it’s because someone tripped her by accident or she just fell down on that one extra long blade of grass; but the result is that no less than 4 other girls will immediately stop what they’re doing and go see if she’s OK. I’m all for the empathy and wanting to make sure others are OK, but with boys, you’ll never see that. They see it as an advantage - ooooooh, someone fell down - that’s one less person trying to kick the ball away from me - advantage!!!

We had our first game last week and it was a BLAST! I never realized how much different it was for the kids to play against kids they don’t know. When you’re practicing, they all know each other and are friends and nobody wants to take the ball from their friend and make them feel sad (again, this is only applicable with girls). But get them out on a field playing against girls they don’t know, and watch out! Out come the claws - they are BRUTAL! The littlest, teeniest, sweetest girl turns into this crazed maniacal creature, something like what you might see in The Exorcist. They are AGGRESSIVE man! The game was fun and very even as far ability on both teams, and even though technically the YMCA doesn’t keep score, you know darn well the girls are keeping score. I am proud to say that my little Ladybugs beat the Unicorns by 1 goal . . . 6-5. And how fun is it that there were so many goals scored so lots of the girls had a chance at it! And believe it or not, there was even PASSING - I couldn’t believe it!

Tomorrow we have our 2nd game . . . the last game that coaches are allowed on the field to assist their players with positioning, etc. Next week we’re still allowed to coach, but we’re not allowed ON the field - just on the sidelines. We can break up the occassional scurmish that breaks out when two people want to do the corner kick and neither will back down - but other than that, it’ll be all the girls; 4 and 5 year old girls trying to figure out who gets to kick the ball this time and where the heck the rest of them should stand.

Wish me luck!

Well, it’s Thursday - which means soccer practice. My son will be joining his team, the Hurricanes this evening. Thank goodness they chose a good name!

I again will attempt to herd some cats

Wish me luck!

Do you know how difficult it is to get 8 girls to stand in 2 lines so they can pass a soccer ball to each other? I do. It’s much like herding cats; cats that like to pick dandelions out of the grass; cats that like to watch the boys play soccer because their coach has a whistle, and he USES it; cats that like to tell you they have a purple teddy bear at home; cats that like to explain how this one girl at the lunch table sneezed and snot came out her nose and she caught it with her hands and it stretched so far that . . .

Now, explain to them what a corner kick and goal kick are and tell them where the 4 positions are and they’ll remember. 15 minutes later, you say “goal kick red” and they all run to where they’re supposed to be, filling in the missing spots.

But ask them to stand in 2 lines . . . that’s crazy talk. I might as well have been speaking Klingon.

I wrote last week how my daughter’s soccer team chose the Ladybugs as their team name. They finally found a coach for my son’s team, so they get to choose a name this week, which made me giggle because I thought of the team naming ceremony from last year. This is the conversation that ensued last year when eight 5 and 6 year old boys had to choose a name for their soccer team.

Coach: OK boys - we need to choose a team name. Any ideas?
Player #1: (raising hand enthusiastically while sitting on his new blue soccer ball) I know - how about the Blue Balls!
Coach: (trying very hard not to laugh out loud) Um, maybe we should take some more suggestions. Anyone else have any ideas?
Player #2: (raising hand enthusiastically) Oh, I know I know . . . How about The Flaming Blue Balls!

At this point, Coach #1, Coach #2, and any number of the parents witnessing the exchange pretty much lose it and begin laughing hysterically.

In the end, they decided on The Volcanoes. We’ll see what they come up with this year.

It happened. I promised myself it would never happen, but it did. Against every fiber of my being, it happened. Today, I officially became a Soccer Mom. My son has been playing soccer for 3 years now, and we’ve had lots of fun watching him, and learning about soccer. My daughter is finally old enough to play, so we signed her up this fall, also.

Really, what’s better than watching a pack of little kids chase a ball around a soccer field, try to kick it but swing and miss and end up on their tooshy? What’s better than watching little boys pick dandelions while the ball sails past them for a goal? What’s better than spending an hour every Thursday evening at the park while they practice - in the heat, rain, and yes even snow? What’s better than sitting at the park every Saturday morning watching little kids have a blast playing soccer - in the heat, rain, and snow? Does anything compare to the looks on their faces as they run through the “parent tunnel” at the end of the game, not caring whether they won or lost, but caring only that they got to run through an actual TUNNEL?

Today is their first practice of the season. I thought I was being smart signing them both up for the same practice day and time. Easy to float back and forth between their practices since they’re at the same park. AND, it’s only one hour one evening that we waste - um I mean spend - at the park playing soccer. Man I AM smart I told myself!

Then I got the Call To Action from the YMCA and the stupid gene kicked in. I became the coach of my daughter’s team. Last week I found myself typing those words that will haunt me for the next 10 weeks “Sure, I can coach my daughter’s team if you don’t have anyone else.” How EVER did this happen? I’ve never coached soccer before! Heck, I’ve never even PLAYED soccer before!

But, I found myself at the coach’s meeting last Saturday - thankfully the guys from the Y are VERY helpful! I actually feel like I know what I’m doing I’m sure that feeling will go away around 5:15 this evening when I actually have to gather 9 little girls, which I can only imagine is much like herding cats, and teach them about the game of soccer.

All this while my little dude practices with his team on a field far, far away. Not really, luckily it’s the field right next to ours, but I’m still kind of bummed that I won’t get to watch him practice. And I’m hoping that their games aren’t at the same time too often - at least not when Dan is gone flying.

So, wish me luck as I venture in to the world of pigtails, ponytails, and pink cleats!