Another way

The phrase "soccer mom" generally refers to a married middle-class woman who lives in the suburbs and has school age children. She is sometimes portrayed in the media as busy or overburdened and driving a minivan or SUV. She is also portrayed as putting the interests of her family, and most importantly her children, ahead of her own The phrase derives from the literal, specific description of a mother who transports and watches her children play soccer. It was also used in names of organizations of mothers who raised money to support their children's soccer teams. The first reference to the phrase soccer mom in the US national media has been traced to 1982. In that year, the husband of the treasurer of the "Soccer Moms booster club" of Ludlow, Massachusetts, stole $3,150 raised for the benefit of a local soccer league. (from Wikipedia)

I don't remember the first time I heard the term "soccer mom," but I swore I'd never become one. I also swore I'd never drive a minivan or say, "Because I told you so!" to my kids. 

Yeah, well...

Then my son played soccer... softball... my daughters discovered that they liked volleyball and cheerleading (ugh... I still sigh over that one) and I tried to be present at as many of their sporting events as I could reasonably and feasibly attend.

Basketball has been the sport this school year. Five kids, five different teams. Some weeks, in between practices and games, it felt like all we did was basketball.

I loved it, even though it was exhausting.

Anna's basketball team played for the title in the final season tournament for their division. They played hard and won the bronze medal, second year in a row. Not bad for a team that never plays a home game (the gym at the school is not a full-sized gym) and only has access to that gym for one two hour practice per week.

However, their semifinal game broke my heart, and not just because they lost: 44 - 47.

They were playing a very good team, one with more resources, lots more opportunity to train, deeper bench and generally more skilled. However, our girls play with a lot of heart and had beaten this team in regular season play, in another nail biter of a game.

This game, however, there was a scoring/record keeping mistake. 

One of the gals on Anna's team drove for a lay-up, literally threading the needle to get to the basket, and scored. The electronic scoreboard showed the score immediately. But a few seconds later, the official scorekeepers took those two points away from Anna's team and then added them to the opposing team's total.

Friends, family, parents and other spectators cheering for Anna's team started immediately asking why. The ref went over to check the score sheets. Apparently, those two points had been marked... and tallied... in the wrong place and the ref left the score as it was: instead of 14 - 15 (leaving Anna's team one point behind), the score was now 12 - 17.

When one of the parents tried to insist, he was ejected from the game.

Is it possible that the other spectators present, all of those there and cheering for the other team, did not observe what happened? 

Yes, that is a possibility.

Is it believable that the other team's coach really didn't know what had just happened? 

Yeah... I guess, although I have a harder time swallowing that. In all honesty, however, I must add that I'm not naturally inclined to think the best of said coach as I was not impressed by the "coaching" demonstrated. 

Is it possible that our entire group of EVZone (Anna's team) supporters misunderstood and/or were mistaken and that the change was a just one? I guess - but I don't really think so. That's clearly some of my own bias showing.

The score remained 12 - 17. Our girls rallied, played hard, even had the lead a couple more times in the game - but in the end lost and ended up playing in the semifinals rather than the final game. 

I guess I don't know for sure. 

However, I hope that had the shoe been on the other foot, had a similar mistake been made that would have given Anna's team the advantage, that I would have chosen a different way. That I would have been the first to approach the refs and share my memory of what had happened.

For in my mind, herein is the real tragedy.

An opportunity was lost.

Once our kids get to that later high school/young adult stage, adults (parents included) must earn the right to continue to speak into their lives. Here, the adults present had an opportunity to teach a better, most excellent way - a way that sets personal desire and brief moments of glory aside, delighting instead in what is honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, true - and sometimes very difficult to do...  by denying self and choosing the other first.

I pray that the way my daughter saw modeled by her daddy and me, as we responded to what transpired at this game, fell into that better way category.

Because it is awful easy to get caught up in a soccer mom mentality, willing do whatever it takes to see my kid succeed.

Winning the battle.

But what do I risk losing when I choose the temporary and immediate satisfaction of a less excellent way?

When Parenting Gives You Whiplash + ...

Last night, I was at a basketball game for my ten year old. 

In between cheers of encouragement and full belly laughs at her team of just-shy-of-tween-age girls who are all limbs and uncontrolled speed with awkward (at best) coordination, I was also busy texting away with my almost 18 year old. That daughter - who moved back to the States last summer - was working on one of her college applications for next fall. She was rapid-firing me screen shots (which I had to enlarge and scroll all around just to be able to read on my phone), asking me what different abbreviations referred to, what certain questions meant, generally seeking advice and counsel as she negotiated her way through the on line application.

Two very-different-but-not-really-because-they-are-all-my-kids worlds colliding: the fun, noise and movement of an elementary school basketball game with the seriousness, potentially future-life-impacting decisions of young adulthood and the completion of college application forms. 

My head was, almost literally, spinning.

This is one of those things that I couldn't fathom way back when - a young mother of several littles. Those all consuming, all absorbing days of diapers, late night feedings, steamy showers to alleviate croup and congestion, car seat battles, potty training, moms & tots groups and mountains of laundry that rarely got folded and put away before being worn again. 

I could have never foreseen such craziness, even when frazzled by the scurrying of school mornings and making then packing lunch for eight or nine bodies leaving the house by 8:00 a.m. - at the latest, the wild switch between drilling second grade spelling words, kindergarten writing practice... both while deciphering physics and striving to remember how to use a scientific calendar... only to be interrupted by a seventh grader learning to use a Chromebook followed by ninth grader trying to write a poem for English class. Oh yeah... dinner was prepared and a prayer letter written while all of that other stuff was taking place.

Now we've entered that parenting season where biggers are far from us and busy with lives they are building independent of their parents... but who, in many ways, still need (and thankfully, still desire) coaching from Dad and Mama as they learn to navigate all of those new-to-them real-life-with-real-life-results-and-consequences types of situations. When overwhelmed and confused, they text Mama, hoping she can somehow figure out what they need to do. When tired and needing encouragement, they call Dad, hoping his voice (and a few words of wisdom) will breathe courage and gumption back into them - and just maybe tell them what to do so they don't have to figure it all out all by themselves.

We currently have three at least knee (or waist... chest... neck... depending on day and/or circumstance) deep in a swamp called Discovery that Adulting is Liberating, New, Fun and Exciting... but Sometimes Scary... and Almost Always Lots of Hard Work and Responsibility! 

Our young adults are on a steep learning curve - but, "Oy!" 

So am I.

For when I get those texts from distant ones who are removed from my right here right now reality of elementary homework (almost all in French), high school homework (again, almost all in French), carpools, basketball games and schedules, malfunctioning saxophones, school Christmas programs as well as all the regular daily - dinner, laundry, picking up around the house, keeping up with mission correspondance,... I'm learning how to multitask in a totally new way. For I try to give my biggers the coaching they need, encouraging, giving factual information, asking questions that get them to think... but I can't just grab a pencil and work out a sample college application the same way I just walked then talked our 4th grade Elsie Mae through adding signed numbers - until she was ready to practice all on her own. I can't write a college essay, apply for a job, talk to the financial office and figure out a payment plan for school bills. I can't just default to telling them what I think they should do because I'm discombobulated by straddling the chasm between these two parenting worlds... These bigs have to make their own plans and decisions and then follow through (or not) and get the results (or consequences) that are a part of their choices.

It IS agonizing as a parent - to want to tell them what I think they should do (after all, experience has taught me a few things here and there) and know that that's exactly what I shouldn't do. Instead, I need to coach and encourage and comfort as they live their own lives and choices, listening and listening and listening - occasionally reflecting back what I hear or asking probing questions - but no longer pushing... no longer leading... 

Instead, I'm coming alongside as they join me in this adulting adventure.

That's all fine and dandy - I get it.

What makes it crazy is that at the same time, we still have the bigs and littlers at home - who have very different parenting needs. And I need to be very present, not distracted by the text of the moment - which can be hard. After all, an elementary basketball game doesn't seem to have as much long term life impact as decisions about which college to attend.

That switch from parenting-by-text to basketball mama? 

It = whiplash + wind knocked out of you + exhaustion 

(bigs text at the most unreasonable hours, by the way) 

Most days, I don't know 

• whether to cry from loneliness for my hearts that are walking around many miles distant - I miss those awesome young adults, a lot...
• whether to celebrate all of the great steps I get to hear about (and occasionally see) as they trudge through the adulting swamp...
• whether to panic that a car is in the ditch or someone is deathly sick because I haven't had a text or Facebook message in the past 36 hours - and send out the Calvary to check, just in case...
• whether to just bask in the enjoyment of learning to be not just parent but friend...
• or whether to take a 25 minute power nap and slather Icy Hot on my neck so I'm ready for the next wild texting session in the middle of a basketball game!

On the other hand, every single day, I DO know

that I wouldn't trade this life I've been gifted by God. 

Five Minute Friday ~ Crowd ~

I've been spending lots of time sitting among a crowd of spectators watching elementary kiddos learn to play basketball lately. 

It's fun!

It's hilarious, actually!

The first and second grade girls, Elsie Mae's group, are probably the most amusing... although the difference between their games this week and their games the first week is pretty amazing.

But first the back story...

A few weeks ago, Elsie Mae was at church. She was walking out of the bathroom, heading for the drinking fountain. Another little guy was headed down the hall. Both were possibly moving at speeds greater than necessary and not looking out for others. The result was a collision where both ended up on the floor and Elsie Mae ended up with a nose bleed... that took nearly 40 minutes to stop and left her with a nice swollen place on the bridge of her nose as well as a headache.

We talked with her pediatrician and he wanted us to go and get an x-ray, just to be sure her nose wasn't broken. We did. It wasn't. She was, however pretty sore and prone to nosebleeds for the next several days. 

Boy have we found out just how prone...

Fast forward to her next basketball game. The players run in as their name is announced for every game... Harlem Globetrotters music playing in the background. Elsie Mae rounds the corner, promptly slips, falls and her nose starts to bleed, again.

No real biggie. We get it stopped and she's back out to play in a few minutes.

Next week, same story... The shoes she's wearing have a cloth covering on the sole and that cloth covering mixed with little seven year old girl clumsiness seem to be her recipe for sliding, slipping ad falling.

Someone get that girls some shoes that won't slip! Right?

Except she already does have some.

They are just forgotten, every week at both practice and game time, in her locker at school... in a modular  unit that we can't access after academic hours.

I guess we could have bought her another pair. 

Except that would be rescuing.

There are times as mamas and daddies that we rescue our children.

There are also times that we don't. 

Instead, we love and support them through the consequences... Even if that means the heart-ouch of watching her slip and fall and be embarrassed because it happened again... Even if it means risking another nosebleed... Even if it means being that parent running to the bathroom again to grab something to stop another nosebleed prompted by the latest slip and fall.

But?

She remembered to bring her shoes home for both practice and her games this week... all on her own. She was super pleased with herself. She played better, too.

Maybe she's learning? Maybe she's figuring out about consequences and how our choices tend to have those and they aren't always ones we like?

I know I am.

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Linking up with Lisa-Jo for another Five Minute Friday - five fun minutes of writing every week - one of my blogging highlights every week!

Would love for you to join us as well!

Thanks to Gammie and Gampie (Captured Memories Photography) &

Coach/Aunt Sonja, for the photos in this post!

Wordless Wednesday - In Honor of March Madness...

Basketball - in the Pool?

When it is as hot as it has been lately -

- it isn't a bad alternative. Kind of ends up being a mix between keep away and basketball.

No dribbling, of course!

Here's the Baaba watchin' his big girls...

We know this isn't a standard basketball - but sometimes, ya jus' gotta make do with whatcha got!

P.S. One of our friends glanced at that picture of Nadia and reminded me that in this photo we get a little glimpse of our much sooner-than-I'm-willing-to-admit teenager!