Let the Games Begin...

The other day, I realized that it seems like I write the same posts over and over again every year. In part, that's because I put my kids in sports early and life really is sort of a monotonous blur of kids' sporting events...blinding even, like the uniforms of the 2012 Lemon Lemurs...

(Turns out this color is so darned bright that it messes up the exposure on the camera!)

I think about that and wonder if I would do things differently if I had it to do over again. And the answer is an unequivocal 'no'.

I believe in the value of team sports. I believe in knowing how to function as a member of a team, learning how to get along and contribute to the cause, no matter how small your contribution. And I believe in having friends.

One of my very best mom friends is someone I met when our sons played together on Smunch's first soccer team. Our kids didn't have classes together for years after that, even though we've got two in the same grades. We were friends anyway. The boys played soccer and baseball together for years. And now they don't.

Her son still plays soccer and opted to "play down" last year for baseball. My son quit soccer altogether to focus on increasingly competitive baseball.

Still, the boys are friends. And our younger kids are friends. Hers is a boy, so he and Mam will never play sports together, although they are in the same class this year.

Mam is the only girl he'll play with. She's spunky, she's fearless and despite the dresses (and the pink goalie shirt), she's decidedly un-girly.

And my friend H, and I get together regularly, to walk, hike, enjoy coffee, share dinner with the families, revel in some nice wine and fine cheese...

Smunch knows tons of other boys because he's played on so many baseball teams. There's always someone he knows at any baseball event.

The same is true for Mam. And I love that.

Still, as soccer season leads to basketball season, leads to softball/baseball season right into travel ball season...life can get to be a pretty darned monotonous series of taking kids to practices and getting up early every Saturday and sometimes Sunday to go out and sit somewhere, sometimes for hours.

Freezing, roasting, watching closely to make sure I don't blink and miss the whole thing.

Blue Angels

Around these parts, when someone mentions the Blue Angels, most people think of the performing team of fighter jets operated by the U.S. Navy. These aren't those Blue Angels.But they don't look like anything you'd want to mess with either, do they?

Mam had a fairly lackluster soccer season last year. Somehow, the fiestiness she showed during her first year of playing soccer had worn off. This year? It's back.She's right in there, taking the ball up the field and taking shots on goal when she gets them. It's a lot more fun to watch this way.

Truthfully, her team is struggling a little. They're a great team with a lot of girls who have Mam's spunk, but each Saturday, they seem to lose by a single goal. Last weekend, that goal (the only goal of the game) was scored during Mam's tenure at goalie. Fortunately, that wasn't the case this weekend...although they lost 1-0 again.

They'll win one of these Saturdays, I'm sure.Mam certainly isn't giving up. She's just refueling.

Another Season Down

Here it is December 31st. I'm coming to the realization that if I don't get to do some blogging here on New Year's Eve, I will have left much of 2010 behind as my blog moves to 2011. And sometimes that makes me think I should just pack the whole thing in. But there were things that deserved blogging. They really did. The kids' last day of soccer is a prime example.

Although the league canceled a day of soccer games during the season because it looked like rain...but didn't actually rain...they apparently didn't have the heart to cancel the very last games of the season, even though they should have. And that was fine because it made for a really, really funny...if very damp...day.

Mam's game was first. It was raining before we arrived and didn't let up the entire time. Although the opposing team didn't seem to mind getting wet, Mam's team opted to play in raincoats. I have a feeling Mam would have been happy to get wet, but since everyone else was in a raincoat, she was too.I guess I might've suggested taking her glasses off...or getting her some windshield wipers. I have no idea how well she could see out there!Her team was losing badly by the time they called the game, shortly after the end of the first half. There was really no reason to continue getting bludgeoned in the rain and calling the game gave the girls time to go home and change before heading off to their post-season pizza party.No doubt, Mam finds that kind of fuss entirely overrated.I only dropped Mam off at her pizza party because I had to jet off to Smunch's final game, where he declared he didn't need a water bottle. If he got thirsty, he'd just stick out his tongue. And so he did.Smunch's team was playing with two fewer players than the opposing team, but the boys chose to keep it that way...making it an official game...rather than have two of the other teams' players switch sides, making it a forfeit game. In keeping with this year's theme, the Silver Sharks were fairly well obliterated yet again. But they were proud of themselves and their acting coach (since the head coach was one of the absentees) was proud of their moxie.The Sharks were done just in time for me to pick up my happy and dry Orange Super Monkey and her trophy from the pizza parlor and head home.

The season seemed awfully short this year...probably because most of their games overlapped each other and I probably only saw half of the games for either of the teams. This seems to be where life is headed. Daddy and I, dividing and conquering.

Giants and Monkeys and Bears...oh, my!

Oh, so many other things, really. I have things I meant to blog about...weeks ago. But I dunno. Things have been getting away with me fairly often lately. I forgot about the appointment to get the kids' flu shots last week. Totally forgot until the next day. Ugh. I suspect it's a sure sign that, once again, I'm in over my head. Soccer, speech, soccer, chess, Daisies, soccer, soccer, soccer, rest, repeat. Forget the volunteering at school. And totally forget working...that doesn't even make it onto the calendar.

I helped put together a teddy bear factory for the first graders a week or so ago. I'd neglected to tell Mam that I was helping out with her class that day. She was ridiculously thrilled to see me.It's such a cute little event...very much like Build-A-Bear at the mall, but in our multipurpose room...and Mam loves her new bear, who she named Corduroy.

Meanwhile, the kids are still playing soccer weekly. Mam seems to have regained last year's form in large part.Although the other girls are much, much better than the girls were at this time last year, she's back to being her feisty ol' self, scoring goals, hugging her teammates and squealing like...well...an Orange Super Monkey.And, really I just mention that because it made for a cute title.

Daddy had a birthday.I made another yummy cake...same one as last year and the year before. With all the balls I've got in the air, it was hard to shop for fun birthday gifts. I ended up purchasing Jon Stewart's new book, Earth - A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race, which came out on Daddy's birthday, so didn't arrive 'til the next day. Funny book, but I had to have Daddy take it directly to work. Definitely not kid appropriate! Still, it was more exciting than the couple of shirts I'd bought him.

Any of you who have been reading my blog for awhile probably know that I'm a barely closeted baseball fanatic. A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call during the day...for Smunch. Turns out it was a store where we went last year so Smunch could meet Pablo Sandoval and get an autograph. They just wanted to let him know that they'd lined up a new signing event with both the Panda and Aubrey Huff...one of the Giants' most popular new players this year.

I spend a lot of time at home alone these days. So you can imagine how delighted I was to find a baseball fan on the other end of my phone. Not only someone to talk to, but someone to talk baseball to. He almost talked me into going to meet Will Clark...one of my own baseball heroes. But we had a wedding to go to and I finally let that one go. But I quickly signed Smunch up to go meet Aubrey Huff. So, Thursday, Daddy came home early and I picked the kids up from school and drove them directly to the train station. This signing was at AT&T Park, rather than "a nearby city". Smunch (mostly) happily did his homework on the way there.We got there about half an hour before the signing was set to start. The daytime game had just ended. The team won. The postgame show was being taped right in front of the park, so we got to see some TV personalities, including Rich Aurilia, who just retired from the team last year.The fog was rolling in. How long have a lived here now? Why didn't I bring sweaters for everyone? I know better than to go to The City without sweaters. No matter. The Giants Dugout store was right there, not 50 feet from where we stood in line. Daddy went and bought a blanket.And the shivery wait was worth it when both Aubrey Huff, aka Huff Daddy, and Pablo "The Panda" Sandoval walked out and sat down to sign autographs.I even had a funny little conversation with Mr. Huff...starting with telling him how much fun it's been watching him have fun playing and ending with him picking on his teammate down the table for swinging at too many bad pitches. Of course, the Panda hit one out of the park that afternoon, so I'd say they were equally well loved that night!

Sharks and Monkeys

I think my new part-time job must be cutting into all that time I used to spend blogging. It's a good gig and all, but gosh, I did have some other ideas for things to do with my free time and those things just aren't working out!

School started with a bang...like the starting gun at the beginning of a race. I don't dare blink or 1st grade will be over again and our first round of 3rd grade will be too. Mam seems to be enjoying all the advantages of being a 1st grader. Smunch? He was settled in before he even sat down, I suspect. Several times lately, I've heard him tell someone, "I have, like, the nicest teacher in the whole school." And he does.

But as is now tradition in our household, the start of school is just the harbinger for the start of soccer season. This year, Mam scored fluorescent orange as a team color. And Smuch is clad in "silver"...still just a nice word for grey.So far, it's promising to be a pretty different year than last year. Soccer has never really been Smunch's sport. He enjoys it and he chose to play soccer over playing "fall ball", but he's hardly a star. In his first game with the Silver Sharks, he got tired and asked to come out of the game after the first quarter. Ugh!But he happily celebrated goals with the team's star player. Then he got kicked in the foot...hard. Out for another quarter. He seemed O.K. later. He seemed fine until he played soccer again. It's a little hard to believe it's not just a mental problem. I'm hoping he makes it through a few more quarters this weekend.

The blinding orange team is the Orange Super Monkeys (love that!). At Mam's age, they're still mostly playing beehive ball.But they're cute. Mam is nothing like the soccer player she was last year, however. Her fearless fiestiness has been replaced by hang-back-and-watch-it-ness...although she did score a goal in her second outing. There've only been two games, so maybe last year's soccer star will re-emerge yet.

Can you tell I'm kinda missing baseball season?

Another Kind of Ball

There was a lot of gardening done last weekend, but we took a break Saturday evening to spend some time at another professional sporting event. And, no, it wasn't baseball. In fact, apart from the fact that it involved a ball, it didn't seem particularly related to our nation's pasttime.

At the elementary school auction, I'd bid on and won, a pair of tickets to see the FC Gold Pride...our local professional women's soccer team.I originally thought that Mam and I would go to the game on our own. That was before I learned that the team had moved from a local stadium to one across the bay. Daddy bought additional tickets for himself and Smunch and we all went. As Murphy's Law would have it, Daddy and Smunch ended up with the better seats. Go figure. My seats had been donated by the coach of the team. You'd think he might've done better than gotten general admission tickets on the 10 yard line. Still, the Pride was shooting at our end of the field for the first half, so that was fun to watch...and photograph!

Their move across the Bay messed things up a bit and their "permanent" stadium was still undergoing renovations. Instead, the team, playing the New Jersey Sky Blue FC, played in a high school stadium that night.No matter. It meant there were really no horrible seats. And it was really a fun, relatively low-key event, where they auctioned off the ball that was used for the first goal and the honor of meeting the goal scorer on the field after the game.

The highlight of the home opener was the Gold Pride's newest player, Marta...so world-famous that she apparently needs only one name. And Marta did not disappoint.She's got incredible foot control and is lightning fast. Her legs actually look like this when you watch her play:And yes, the Sky Blue really has violent orange visiting uniforms.

Mam was really tired after a long day of "gardening" and was pretty grumpy, but watched gamely, especially after we moved to sit next to Daddy and Gavin for the second half.Still looks a little dazed though, doesn't she?

On the whole, it was a fun night. Although the game was tied for much of the time, the Gold Pride ended up winning 3-1. The kids were happy, we spent nothing on food (unlike the small fortune we spend at baseball games) and had a good time. Oh, if we'd only had more of this during the oh-so-long Spring Break!

Lighting and Blue Butterflies

Well, that's quite a title there, isn't it? It's all about soccer, the Fall sport of choice in our household. Mam is playing for the first time this year since she's finally old enough to be eligible here.

Smunch, of course, is also playing soccer...for his third year in a row. Although there are two full teams of second graders from Smunch's school, he ended up on a team with just two kids from his school, neither of whom are friends, particularly. Most of the kids are from another school entirely. Fortunately, they and their parents seem to be really nice and we're having a good time. At the first practice, they were given their uniforms. I'm always excited to find out what color they are...possibly more excited than Smunch is. This year's jersey:What color is that? Seriously though, if they had to ge the weird pixelated jersey, those are a pretty cool combination of colors. And they've named themselves The Lightning (or Lightening, if you ask the coach's wife to spell it. I think that's a hair product.) Now that I look at it again, I think The Plague might've been an appropriate name.His season is well underway. The Lightning's record is 0-1-1 so far. Smunch seems happy enough with that. For my part, I can barely watch the games. They've become so competitive that I get all tense. And this year one kid is goalie in each quarter. So far, they haven't scored while Smunch has been goalie. Thank goodness...although it'll be interesting to see how he deals with that.Do you think it looks like he's singing "The Wheels on the Bus"? I do. He didn't think that was funny when I pointed it out to him, however.

And then, there are the Blue Butterflies.Do you suppose that's a team of kindergarten girls? How would you ever guess?

Mam is so ridiculously, almost embarrassingly in her element that although her team has played the same two games as Smuch's team, she has scored 11 goals. The Blue Butterflies are so far 2-0-0. Go figure. She's feisty, she knows what she's up to and she's got a big brother who's been dominating her with the soccer ball for at least two years now. Think she's proud of herself?You bet she is. And I'm sure she's just itching to get back out on the field this Saturday too.

During the last game, after she'd scored 4 or 5 goals, her daddy dutifully directed her not to score anymore and to pass the ball to teammates instead. She said "O.K." and ran back out there. The result was hysterical. Her MO was almost unchanged except that when she got to the goal, she stood there and looked around, with no one to pass to. The first time, she tried to pass, but her teammates missed it. After that, she just stood there, inches from the goal, not sure what to do. She scored two or three more times while trying her very best not to. It was painfully funny. Because there's just no stopping this girl. Really.

Soccer Girl

My daughter is a fiesty little girl. It's always irritated me that when it comes to sports she's...well, she's a bad sport. She took one soccer class a couple of years ago and loved it. But she was ready to be done and it quickly became something she only played with her brother. And, of course, playing with her brother is frustrating and tantrum inducing.

I signed Mam up for a week-long soccer camp with the idea that it would give me an idea whether to sign her up for AYSO soccer in the Fall. Of course, it turned out that I had to sign her up for AYSO back in April, so camp was useless in that regard. Fortunately, she loved it!She was happy to go every morning, she came home happy, fell asleep fast and slept long.

On the last day of camp, the kids had a World Cup tournament. Mam and her buddy from school were both members of Team Germany. Of course, she didn't bother to tell me that. Apparently, many of the kids didn't really inform their parents about the teams. During the "Parade of Nations" there was definitely an overrepresentation of American flags. During the games, she called for passes...bossily...she ran the field, she kicked the ball. She scored two goals for Team Germany...enough for them to win their game against Team USA. And she was a giant show-off about it. She took the soccer seriously, but not so seriously that she couldn't pose for a picture mid-game.This was probably the funniest moment of the tournament.That's almost the entirety of Team Germany standing in front of the goal. See anyone with the ball? Nope. The other team was at the other end of the field, fighting each other for the ball, with a single member of Team Germany playing offense. Turns out Mam has the same penchant for playing defense as her brother.

What floored me the most, however, was how much her brother enjoyed watching her and cheering her on. He's clearly her very biggest fan. After her second goal, he couldn't keep himself from running out on the field and giving her a big hug. It was very funny and very sweet. When the tournament was over there were more hugs even though Team Germany had hardly been dominant.I knew Smunch was a big sports fan, but what could be better than having your big brother as your biggest fan?