They didn't win either. They tied 1-1. Yet again, Smunch played goalie for a quarter. I barely watched.
He seems so small out there. And often the empty field in front of him and the offensive plowing towards him seemed pretty daunting. But he's not that fragile. He's a decent goalie. And the one time he's been scored on (which was not this weekend), he didn't seem to care, even though the ball went right between his legs. That didn't happen Saturday. He made a bunch of saves and did just fine during a quarter when he saw a lot of action.
Mam, meanwhile, has befriended the little brother of the most "problematic" of Smunch's teammates. Fortunately, the little brother (who is the middle of three brothers) is very friendly, fairly nice and loves to play with Mam, despite being a year younger. The moment they spot each other is always the best moment of the game or practice. It also happens that they get to hang out while their brothers take swim class on Mondays.
This little guy calls me "Ryder". I'm not sure exactly why. I think he asked once and I must've said "Mrs. Ryder" and that's how he interpreted it. It cracks me up. I don't plan to correct him.It was a cold and cloudy morning, but a successful game, by our standards. The beginning to the crappy part of our weekend was just around the corner, however.
After the game, Mam took off for yet another Pump It Up party while Smunch had one of his teammates come home with him for a playdate. His playdate is a super nice kid who is on his team, in his Cub Scout den and in his second grade class. They needed to go distribute door hangers for the Boy Scouts' annual food drive, so I left all that to Daddy.
When Mam and I got home, Smuch and his friend were just getting back from their scout duties. They'd had a good time and had played nicely and quietly together. It's amazing what a nice, quiet friend will do for our kid's disposition! But by 1 o'clock, things were starting to go south. I'm not sure why. Maybe Smunch got up too early, maybe he wasn't feeling well, maybe he's just weird, but you could feel the hyper and wound-up chid coming out. Daddy is good at spotting this stuff early and made the executive decision to have our playdate picked up. It was a good choice.
Smunch's friend left and he and Mam went out to play with some of the neighborhood kids out in the street. That was fine, but Smunch had to be warned a couple of times not to mess with his sister. When she finally came in saying that he was trying to knock her off her bike, Daddy went out there and made him come in and go to his room.
I don't think any child would be overjoyed with that news, but Smunch was livid. From the other end of the house I could hear the massive racket he was making in his room. It sounded like he was throwing things around and screaming. Maybe that was part of it. The truth didn't come out 'til hours later. He'd been in his room, hitting his forehead on his bed frame. He'd hit himself so hard that a big, bumpy bruise was coming up from his hairline to the top of his nose. I don't know if I've felt more alarmed in recent memory. "I was punishing myself," he said. If only he knew how that kind of crap punishes the fragile psyche of mommies.
That wasn't the end of the crap, of course. Mam had disappeared off into one of our neighbors houses and I had to go fetch her for her own soccer game...the last of the season. She came home relatively willingly. She loves soccer after all. But she forgot her bike and had to go back for it. I waited, hairbrush and hairspray in hand. And I waited some more, until I stomped over to the door to find out where the heck she'd gone.
There she was, with her bike in the floor between our two vehicles...the mommymobile and the Daddysmidlifecrisis...just standing there. There are only a couple of feet between the van and the car. The kids never take their bikes between them, for good reason. The mommymobile has had more than its share of child-caused vandalism. It was rear ended about a month ago and although the damage was minimal, I used it as an excuse to have the whole side of the van repaired and repainted. I have a great body shop. It looked brand new again (at least on those panels that they did). I got it back last week. And this week...?
You guessed it. This week, it is now scratched all the way down the side by a little girl's bike handle, or fender or something. I was pissed. I made her cry. I made this sweet little thing cry.
I'm not proud of that, but it almost seemed necessary at the time. Seriously, why did I bother getting all those dings repaired. I must be an idiot. Unless I was going to adopt my children out, there was no logical reason to try and make the mommymobile prettier or less embarrassing to drive.Mam had recovered by the time we left for her game. It was another rip roaring success.
I'm going to miss this team of little girls. They changed so much over the season.
Mam no longer stands out as the star. Now they all know what they're doing. Mam scored once, but her teammates scored three or four more times. They know what they're doing...just in time to forget it all for next year.There was a pizza party to celebrate and medals were awarded to all of the girls. Both of our two wonderful coaches had something really nice to say about each player. I give these guys a lot of kudos. It's got to be hard to coach "beehive soccer" and they did a fantastic job.
And so the evening ended with us hanging Mam's new medal from a shelf in her room and sending the kids off to sleep.
Daddy wasn't feeling so great, so we got in the jacuzzi tub for a little bit, then went to sleep.
He was up again a couple of hours later and I could hear a torrent of rushing water. What?? I went and looked outside to see if there was a broken pipe or something. Nothing. It was the bathtub in the hall. Turns out, Daddy had woken up with a raging fever. Not wanting to bother me, Daddy had gone to put himself in the hall bathtub. Of course, neither of us knew that it's crazy loud in our room when you do that.
I got up and went to sleep in another room. I couldn't go back to sleep. And I finally heard Daddy get out of the bathroom. I heard him go back to our room, notice I wasn't there and then head for the room where I was. He opened the door and I uncharitably said,"What do you want now??? He sounded irritated at my tone and said he needed to tell me something, then rambled on about how the cats had peed in the bathtub and we'd both bathed in watered down urine and that he was itchy and hot.
What??? I just wanted to sleep. I didn't question him, I let him go. He doesn't remember this conversation. Apparently that fever was BAD! And he's still sick. I'm quite sure he has the flu. Could be H1N1 ("the swine flu") or more of garden variety, but he's been looking green and staying in bed all day.
Tomorrow's Monday. I think I'm looking forward to it.
3 comments:
What a weekend! Those are those mommy moments where you just want to go hide under the covers until you can regain your sanity. Poor smunch. And poor mam, too - I bet she felt so badly about the scratches. But RIGHT AFTER they were fixed?! What are the odds? That's life for you, I guess. Or should I say, that's motherhood, for you! Thank goodness there are lots of highs to make up for those really bad moments/weekends! (The cats peeing in the tub is just adding insult to injury!)
For the record, no cats *actually* peed in the tub. Daddy was completely delusional.
I have tears running down my face as I read the part about the cat urine...I couldn't read it outloud without laughing hysterically! Sorry that your day was so bad...as the earlier poster wrote, so goes being a mom! You wrote about the day so beautifully though!
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