Shaking It Up On the Soccer Field of Good and Evil

Mini-me (on far left, wearing red) at her soccer team's first practice, last night.

Does your kid play soccer?  Baseball?  Football?  How about basketball, hockey or softball?  Yes?

[nods head]

Perhaps, you've even coached a team, or two.

Like, my kids' coaches (two of them are playing soccer, this year) who volunteer their time, year after year, one season into the next and sometimes more than one sports, at a time.

PHEW.

Don't get me wrong, my husband would love to coach, but Garth (not his real name) gets home really late and sometimes is scheduled to work three weekends out of the month.

Me?  Well, as I see it, teaching kids sports means a) one would need to know a little something about that particular sport and b) being able to physically, you know, do it.

I mean, giving birth to 4 babies, I can't do a jumping jack, or sneeze, without having certain parts of my body begin to leak (you're welcome) sometimes, all at once (I'm sure) besides, my uterus might fall out, or something.

Still.

Some of these guys are diehard dedicated to involving themselves in nearly every aspect of their children's lives and I can't help but think, you know, what kind of day job allows these people ALL that free time?

"What do you do?"

I was chatting on the sidelines with a couple of moms - because, I have this silly little habit of not being very comfortable with silence - and decided to try and make conversation with one of the dads, who I've often seen around school and various girl scout events, seeing as my 7-year-old likes his 7-year-old and they ARE basically in everything, together.

"Nothin'."

Um...okay...well, there you go.

"I lost my job..."

Wait for it.

"...been laid-off since last October..."

Does the math.

"...but, my severance is running out and, well, you know."

Yep, aaaand that I am a total asshat!

"Yeah, I know."

Earlier this week, I wrote a post over at the New Jersey Moms Blog about how it sometimes takes a community to feed a child, but last's night conversation confirmed that a) you never really know what's going through someone's head, unless you ask and b) the next person you find defending themselves, might just be you.

"I'm sorry, but we've been meaning to have So-and-So over for a play date."

I watched the RNC last night and, for all his faults, I sort of agreed with John McCain when he said:

"If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself."

"How about next week?"

No - contrary to popular opinion that John McCain has nailed the soccer mom vote -  I still do NOT know who I am voting for and that's not the point, really.

"Sounds good and I can save you the trip by picking them up after school!"

So, yeah, I decided to give people another chance to be nice - the blogging world is full of them - and make an honest attempt to involve myself a little more in my "real-life" community, as well.

"Besides, don't you have...like...a bunch of kids playing soccer, or something?"

This way, they'll get to know me and perhaps even see for themselves.

"Nah, just two."

I'm not so bad, either.

"The other two don't like to participate in anything that involves other people."

[eyes go wide]

" NO...no, I mean...OF COURSE...they like people!"

[takes two steps back]

"They'd rather just, you know, write about them."

[the sound of crickets chirping]

Yeah...I know...I better just stop NOW, before I hurt myself, or something starts to leak, right?

© 2008 This Full House - All Rights Reserved.

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Comments

[Bree]

Oh my. Cam and Mozza do the karate THANG... Cam just started his first season of soccer and Mozza will be starting dance soon. And Cam is starting Cub Scouts.

And I can totally hear myself having these kind of conversations!

And it's an old friend here. New name and new blog. I used to have a plate that was very FULL.

So nice to get back!

[Cindy]

Yes, I know these days.

Oldest girl plays basketball (school & AAU), volleyball (school & AAU), and softball. She *wants* to play hockey, but, we're like "um, when? No. Sorry."

Youngest plays soccer and is starting her third year in ballet. She wants to play softball, volleyball and basketball like her big sis and has a good skill start.

But, geez, shuttling kids to and fro *IS* my full time job!

Oh, yea, and they both have school and varying degrees of stuff to do for that as well!

[Diana]

Bwahaha! Nice one. Sounds like something I would do. Yep, foot. in. mouth. pronto.

As for activities we're a little more limited because 1) RURAL LIVING! Agh! Seriously, remember the small pox discussion at BlogHer, so not a joke here. And, 2) I work too far away, it's tough. Hopefully that second one will change soon, though.

The Pea doesn't do much of anything yet, she's only three, after all. I do believe though that this year she'll be old enough to join her sister in Irish Dance and she's very excited about that so we'll have:

2 in Irish Dance (all 300 people here are Irish, dontcha know - also the cats and dogs and a couple guinea pigs).

And then The Princess who just turned 7 will also be in Destination Imagination, She wants to continue with Fiddle Lessons, and she's working on her riding technique a few times per week with her very capable instructor (me. ha!), she also does Pom Pons and in the summer Softball. In my opinion, that's plenty at seven.

[Naomi]

LOL I'm one of those crazy moms that actually wants to coach (I played sports all my life) and I have several successful businesses. Yes you can really call me nuts! :)