I've got a big long post in my head about baby slings and stolen snuggles and moving on to a new season in life. Big, long post. But, I'm posting from the archives instead, because we have far away tournaments this weekend and next, the pool is opening, baseballs playoffs are looming large, recitals are drawing near, and my life is not my own. My writing is not my own. It's the bubbling up of what's happening here and what's happening here is not conducive to contemplative musings about middle age. What's happening here is sports.
Instead, I'll leave you with a piece from a couple of years ago. The baby in the pictures is Karoline. She's a big girl now--two years old--and she's been hearing about fairies all year. It will come as no surprise then that when I told her we were taking the ferry across the river to soccer this weekend, her eyes lit up.
"Katie, we're going to fly across the river on a fairy!"
Katie, who made the same mistake a couple of years ago, is much older and wiser now. She set Karoline straight. Still, wouldn't it be fun to fly across the river on a fairy? And wouldn't that be bonus points for integrating curriculum with real life?
Why do we do this, again?
My husband looked up from the computer Thursday and said, "I sent you a love note."
Interested
(if only because this is a pretty rare occurrence), I made my way to
the inbox. There, for my organizing convenience, was this weekend's
tournament schedule, all laid out and mapquested. How to get from home
to Stephen's games, to Paddy's games and back to Stephen's games and
then back to Paddy's games. This was a lovely thought.
Pssst: he
forgot ballet rehearsal, basketball practices, meals times and
locations, and the fact that it's not going to be warmer the fifty
degrees with a wind chill in the low forties.
And so it begins. Another autumn soccer weekend. Somebody tell me again why we do this?
We do this because it's a part of our family culture. Ah, but is
that the chicken or the egg? Would it be a part of our family culture
if we hadn't made a conscious decision to do it in the first place?
Probably. Before my children were playing sports, they were sitting in
the stands at the local university watching sports. My husband was
working in the athletic department. Those babies were nursed at every
conceivable sporting venue. It was quite natural for them to grow up
wanting to play.
I remember the day of Michael's first soccer game. We lived about a
mile from my mother's house back then and she stopped by in the morning
with some very sad news. It was break-a-mother's-heart news and my
mom's heart was definitely breaking. Michael came down the stairs in
his uniform and with all the earnestness of a six-year-old who'd waited
his whole life for this day, said, "Grandma, just look at me. I'm
dressed to play soccer on a real team. Doesn't that just make you want
to smile?" And she did. His buoyant enthusiasm--his unabashed joy of
the game--brought us a lot of smiles over the next twelve years.
And it was infectious.
Balls multiplied in our house like mushrooms in the rain. Our
afternoons filled with training sessions. Our weekends were--and still
are-- given to matches all over Virginia, DC, and Maryland. And then
there are the tournaments. Those are the family trips our children will
remember, for the most part. There have been tournaments in Virginia
Beach in the pouring rain, while we waited out a hurricane. Tournaments
in Pennsylvania in October when cotton and linen and plenty of water
were are greatest necessities as the temperatures soared into the
nineties. Tournaments in Richmond in March when it was snowing
sideways.
My strollers are always purchased with an eye towards whether they
can be maneuvered on an old farm-turned-temporary-field at the end of
November. My babies all say "ball" as one of their first five words.
They learn to play contentedly on the sidelines and I learn how to keep
them entertained. I know how to nurse a baby when it's freezing outside
and the last thing in the world I want to do is lift my shirt. I know
how to pace the sidelines at the end of a nailbiter with a wee one in a
sling. I even know how to quickly pack four little kids into a double
stroller and leave the sidelines at the request of a referee.
That said. I am not a yeller. I don't call out anything from the
sidelines. I know how distracting that is for the kids on the field.
Whether they are screaming good things or bad things, I don't think
parents should yell from the stands. And I don't do it--it's just not
in me. But I know people who do;-). Sidelines are a great place to
study human nature. Enough said there.
At the beginning of every season, we scope out the parks and
the playgrounds. They set "monkey bar" goals: "I'll get across the
Crestview monkey bars by the end of the season." We do nature study
along the Occoquan and at Burke Lake Park and at Algonkian Regional
park. We collect seashells in Virginia Beach between State Cup matches
and we pray that we get to go to Maine for the Regional tournament. We
know where the Catholic churches are in every place we frequent and we
know the Mass times at those churches in cities other than ours. (Psst,
God bless the Benedictines in Richmond who hosted us on their fields
and in their church.)We also scope out the porta-potties. I've been
known to delay potty training so that it does not coincide with games
at fields with bad porta potties. I'm just saying.
It is in supporting my children in athletic endeavors that my
organizational abilities are stretched and strengthened. Honestly, I
don't have many weekends at home to get my act together. Not only that,
I'd better have said act together while I'm on the road. Last Friday
night, my mother called. While I tried to have a coherent conversation
with her, I instructed Christian and Stephen on vegetable prep for
crockpot stew. I knew it would be very cold and I knew that when I got
home Saturday, I wouldn't want to cook. While they chopped vegetables,
Patrick and Mary Beth laid out clothing and checked equipment, she for
the girls and he for the boys. Mary Beth handled leotards and tights
and ballet shoes, water bottles and snacks and something to to
entertain Katie when she wasn't dancing. Then she made sure the baby
had layers and layers of clothing to keep her warm at soccer. Patrick
built "kits" from the inside out: under armor, shirts, shorts, gloves,
hats, sweatpants, sweatshirts, ski jackets, charcoal activated
handwarmers, extra dollars tucked inside the coats with the promise of
hot chocolate.
I stashed some CDs, made sure I had cash for the ferry, packed the
water-resistant "neat sheet" and the big blankets, the stroller, and
the folding chairs. One more check of the weather. Ack. Throw in an
umbrella. The notes my husband made go in page protectors in a
tournament binder. With them, there is a printout with directions to
reputable food places and a printout of Mass times within a reasonable
distance of the venue. I've learned that I can't just choose a time and
place ahead of time because Sunday's games are always contingent on
Saturday's results and often on Sunday morning's results, too. In the
notebook as well is a copy of medical release forms (not sure why I do
this) and a list of my doctors and insurance information (I know
exactly why I do this--I've had to call our pediatrician from a distant
location more than once, only to discover that she was at the same
tournament on the sideline with her cell phone.) Also in the notebook
is a roster for each team which includes cell phone numbers of every
parent.
So, now we're all organized. Tell me again why we do this? My children
don't go to school. We don't do co-ops or outside classes. There's no
4H or scouting. Frankly, sports and ballet are all we do, because
that's all I can manage. The time and money committed on a daily basis
truly bring me to my brink. So why? What's the point. The short answer
is because my husband thinks it's important. Some days, I just take
that and run with it. The long answer is that I agree with him, though
I have to think about much longer and harder than he does. He sees the
enormous role that sports can play to help prepare a child for the real
world. So do I.
With sports, my husband brings his sons into his real life grownup
world in an appropriate way. He shows them the way men behave and helps
them navigate the twists and turns of long-term commitment to an ideal.
Frequently, his father is also along. Granddad has probably driven to
as many practices as Mike has and he's definitely seen more games,
since Mike frequently travels over the weekends. The boys and their dad
have a culture of their own and it's a good thing. One recent
Saturday, Mike and the boys and Granddad all went to watch Christian
play basketball on the same court where Mike played in high school. The
older men, I'm sure, were taken back in time to their own memories. And
then, they all went out to the track. They ran footraces (well,
Granddad refrained but everyone else ran) and they kicked field goals.
They competed heartily and bonded in a way that I am sure I will never
quite understand and they had a grand time. Someone asked me once how
to interest her son in sports. I couldn't answer her adequately. For
us, it really is a dad thing. Mom knows the game, supports them in
every way possible from nutrition to transportation to miles and miles
of videotaped matches to every ridiculous fundraising scheme to
countless weekends spent on sidelines when I could have been home
cleaning my house or planning lessons. But it's Dad who truly inspires
the love of the game.
(In a couple of weeks, we'll talk more about dance and we'll see how that works in very much the same way for the girls.)
My children learn what it is to discover their gifts and then to
discover that's only half the story: they have to work very hard, with
great discipline, to develop those gifts. They also discover what is
not their gift and how to move on. Or they learn that though they all
have the same family and the same resources, they were created
differently and what is good for one of them isn't necessarily the
right thing for another. They hold each other accountable and they have
zero tolerance for laziness amongst each other. Woe to the child who
squanders his God-given ability. The child who wasn't as abundantly
blessed but works ten times as hard will be relentless until the gifted
child starts to live up to his promise.
They learn both how to lead and how to follow. They learn the value of
the dollar. They know what training costs, what shoes cost (and how to
make sure Grandpa stays abreast of the latest in athletic shoes). As
they get older, they learn to demand (politely) that their coaches
deliver the services for which they are paid. On occasion, they've also
learned to be the player-coach when a coach has been negligent.
As soon as they are old enough, they get certified to referee. They
teach the game. They volunteer to coach. And then they also earn money
to offset the cost of playing. Even Mary Beth will referee soccer. Her
money will go towards pointe shoes, no doubt. Speaking of referees, my
children learn how to handle "unfair." When the ref blows a
call--either accidentally or on purpose--and the whole game goes awry,
it's quite a lesson in a reality: life is not "fair." It's not. And we
all can benefit from lessons in "unfair" because someday it's likely
that something a lot more important than the tournament title decision
will be "unfair."
Of course my children also learn about their peers. They learn from
the boys who are dedicated and from those who break the rules and
squander opportunity. They learn a great deal about human nature and
about both cooperation and competition. They know all about friends who
are still friends after you miss the penalty kick and lose the
tournament and "friends" who are pleased to see you humiliated and
defeated. That's good. They will meet those friends again in the real
world, no matter what God calls them to do.
Even with all my organization, they also are held accountable for
their own personal responsibility stuff. We don't let a child play or
take lessons until he or she is old enough to keep track of the uniform
or necessary equipment. I admit that this so intimidated one child last
year that he never 
put his team socks in the hamper (all season) for fear that they would
get lost in the shuffle and he wouldn't be allowed to play. On the way
to a game a few weeks ago, we were running late due to a flat tire. My
husband called back to Stephen, "Be sure you're all ready. Go ahead and
put your shin guards on."
"Oh no," came a plaintive wail, "Paddy took my shin guards out of my bag again."
"No problem, " quickly came the sigh of relief from the same child,
"I've learned to pack an extra pair in this hiding place in my bag. He
always takes my shin guards. I knew this was going to happen some
day." Survival skills for eight-year-olds. I'm sure he lost sleep
thinking up that one.
Siblings who aren't playing are not always the most cheerful
companions. I pulled a sleeping teenager out of bed in the cold and
dark yesterday morning. He wasn't impressed by my promise of bagel in
the van as we crossed the Potomac River on ferry. I repeated the "You
Have Choice" speech several times in the hour or more we traveled. It
goes something like this: You don't have a choice about whether or
not come spend the day with us and support your brothers. You don't
have a choice about what time to get up or how we're going to get there
or even what you are going to listen to in the van on the way. But you
have a choice over whether this will be a miserable day for you or a
cheerful one. You can choose to see the beauty in the sunrise, to see
how much fun Katie thinks the ferry is, to see how well Stephen is
playing, to be happy to take the little kids to see the horse on the
field next door. Or you can mope. Your choice. Sure would be a shame to
spend the whole day moping. If you choose to mope, though, please go to
the back of the van and don't let me see you." He muttered
something about needing to build a bridge as we made our way over on
the ferry. By the time we went home--twelve hours later--he still
thought they should build a bridge but maybe a little further down the
river. This ferry was pretty cool after all.
There are days when I whine myself and I point out to my husband how much simpler my
our life would be without intense sports and ballet. And he asks, with
all sincerity, what I would do on the weekends. Truth is, I'd probably
do laundry and plan lessons and cook ahead. But I always say I'd take a
drive out to the country on a perfect autumn day and just enjoy being
together. Or go to the beach. Or head for some historic location.
Honestly, we do do that on the weekends. We just play soccer or basketball while we're there. Because that's what the Foss family does.
