My forearms are red and tingly; my eyes are bleary. “If you get another bag, you can take advantage of our two for $3.00 special,” chirps the woman behind the register. Impressive customer service at the Quick Check at 6:30 this Saturday morning. I reclaim my place in line with another bag of ice. I have no feeling left in my arms.
It turns out to have been good advice – I do need four bags to ice down the three dozen single servings of Gatorade, water and orange juice. I am pushing all thoughts of my carbon footprint to a different portion of my mind. Last season, when I sent a three gallon bottle of water and some paper cups, I got "feedback."
I don’t have time to justify the waste. This soccer mom is on snack duty.
8 a.m. soccer scrimmage with a neighboring town followed by a softball double-header 20 miles south. Quick change of uniforms in the car. Sunday’s travel schedule brings us 18 miles north for a 4:45 soccer game. We arrive at 4:00 for warm-ups.
I was the kid picked last for kickball at recess. I was kicked off the Honor Society for failing gym. My husband tosses me the car keys and I duck.
Sports were never my thing. This is INSANE.
My daughter plays two sports. Year-round. Two hours of training, twice a week for both, plus weekend games out of town. She’s ten and she’s been training like an Olympic hopeful for three years now. As one family, we pay $2,000 a year to import “football trainers” from the U.K. to – I’m not sure how to fill in the blank. …win soccer games?
My daughter is not athletically gifted. She LOVES to play, she loves to be with her friends, she loves being part of the team. She runs, she tries hard, she learns. She drinks the Gatorade and eats the snacks at half time. What she needs is a pick up game in the park, neighborhood kickball, biking to a friend’s and playing catch in the yard. And Kool-aid.
This is just not an option here in Baristaville*. I left my kids un-scheduled for three weeks in August so they could hang out with their friends.
Boy, did this backfire. NO ONE was around. The streets were empty.
Instead I gave our babysitter $100 a day to go entertain them – waterparks, movies, pizza, museums. Seriously, it was demonstrated to me that they do not know what to do unless we provide adult supervised, expensive entertainment. This is a crime and I am complicit.
I am a soccer lemming. I don’t know what else to say.
* a term I did not coin, but lifted from another local blogger
2 comments:
Ha ha! I shamed you into posting! :)
I had my kids playing outside the other day, when a neighbor's child came out of the house. She is the same age as my daughter and my daughter ran up, eager to play. She couldn't, because she had already scheduled play time with another child and was off to the car to drive across town for the scheduled playtime. Sigh!
It's not like when I was a kid and we used to climb on roofs and dig through dumpsters for fun...
Well, it is like when I was a kid and I went to sleepaway camp at age 10 for eight weeks because everyone else - virtually EVERYONE else we knew - did that and there were no kids around in the summer, and therefore nothing for kids to do. Day camp ended at age 9 and working started at age 14 and in between, you went away.
My daughter isn't in any sports; the two weekly dance lessons are enough for now. But the only times she plays with other kids outside of school or after-school day care are the times I schedule her to do so. Her closest friend lives six blocks away - too far to walk alone at age 7.
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