I actually got a spam comment for the first time (that I know of) in 10 years of this blog. I deleted it and hopefully won't get any more. I do really appreciate the actual comments I get from you all and I read every one of them. Sunflower, I follow your blog and can't believe how big your girl is getting and all the things she is doing. I still think about the loss of your dad and wondering how you are coping over time.
Something I also just noticed for the first time is that I started this blog in August of 2011 and had no idea I would welcome my baby girl just one year after starting this blog, born August 2012. I never put that together until just now when I was looking to see when I even started this thing. The time before. Before I had kids truly seems like a lifetime ago. I've been trying to conceive, was pregnant, or have been raising kiddos for the last almost 11 years. Just wow. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time letting go of that stage. Well, the stage of building my family. You spend so much time working towards that, then your brain is in a fog for years, you don't sleep well for at least 7 years (for me), and you look up and your kids are mini adults. Opinions, ideas about their futures....its crazy.
I titled this sports....and mostly because tonight was the first time we've been in sports where there is practice during the week. All along, since the kids were 3+, we've done a few different leagues. We did a soccer program that I loved where they had trained coaches teaching them fundamentals, then they would have scrimmages. We started there, then when my son was about 5 we tried a new league with basketball for both of them. That was a lot 'bigger' of a league and so many people and kids. A bit overwhelming if I'm honest. This was pre-covid of course. The bigger league has many different sports so we also did flag football, and soccer in this one too. These leagues worked out well when the kids were littler because you had practice/games on same day, one day during the weekend. Easy (ish) to manage.
I'm finding as the kids get older, our needs are changing. I think if they want to continue playing sports, they are needing a bit more structure and a bit more coaching. The bigger league I mentioned earlier is made up of parent coaches, and our experience all depended on who we got assigned to, such a mixed bag. We had an amazing experience in that first basketball league when my son was 5--coach was just outstanding....and right now we are having the worst experience in flag football where the coach is so negative. Last week he yelled in his son's face during the game and made him run to the endzone and back for messing up.....all the while the boy's mama was on the sideline yelling 'run faster Jackson'. OMG. How humiliating for that kid. BTW I did report this to the league director as this is totally against their policies. We call him coach 'baldy basics'. Baldy also only played his kid and the assistant coaches kid at quarterback. They are actually supposed to rotate the kids so I even went up to him a few times and asked if my son could play some offense. He said it takes time. Like time for what? It was all just so frustrating because we schlepped out there every Saturday for the past few months in the freezing cold just so my son could 'kind of' play. And the sad thing is, my son is a pretty good athlete. Based on how crappy our experience has been, another first....I've never quit a sport during a season in my entire life. Never. And I didn't think I would allow my kids to either. However, I finally threw in the towel after last week's shenanigans and my son and I agreed we were done w/ this league and this season (there was only 2 more Saturdays to go anyway). I told him we could quit. Neither of us were having fun and every week we'd come home so frustrated. It was awful. Why do this to ourselves? He's 7.
So, all that to say we are trying a new league for soccer for both my son and daughter. They are in U9 and U7 levels of soccer if that means anything to anyone. I had heard about this league years ago from my kids' pre-k 3 teacher Ms. Johanna. She had 4 active kids and said they had great experiences. I've shied away from it because she said they had practices during the week. I couldn't justify running around to practices after school when my kids were so little. And, that made for such a long day for them that I worried it would just be too much. Even now I feel like they are still young for this type of commitment, 9 and 7....but if this allows us to get a better experience, i'm more open to it. My girl has practice 2X a week from 5:30-7 on Tues and Thurs and games on Saturday, and my son has practice 1X a week on Wednesday from 5-6, games on Saturday. I am hoping hoping they have games at different times so I can watch them both.
I will also say I am SO proud of myself. I tend to not be very social at these things while Im sitting watching....but as I came up to the new crowd for my girl I introduced myself to everyone. Then when we went over the field I sat next to a mama that had 2 others kids with her and we chit-chatted on an off the whole practice. I enjoyed it! The best part about it is, I asked my girl how she thought it went and she said, "Amazing!". Although she very politely asked me to stop talking on the car ride home because she was so tired ;).
We will see how this goes over time. Soccer 4 days a week. Yes, I am now THAT parent.
A few more tidbits I captured:
In September shortly after school started I asked my son: How was your day? His response? "It's ok. Things happened. It ended". Boy of many words, huh.
In January my son and I were talking about work and he pipes up, "Yeah, moms work and Dads stay home". It made me truly stop in my tracks and think, well....in his world, that's exactly what happens! We do have some friends where the Dad is a stay at home Dad, so that's perhaps where he picked that up, not really sure.
Also, my kids and I were talking about the neighbor boys spending the night. I told my kids that since they fight for their mama, likely they will fight more with me. My son says, "Well, that won't happen because you are such a good parent". My daughter then pipes in, "Yeah, you are". All of this was unprompted. It literally brought me to tears...I told them how nice it was to hear that from them. As my tears were coming my daughter jumps up, comes around the table, and tenderly wipes them away, then she gave me a kiss. Then my son gave me a kiss. MELT my heart.
Just this past month my daughter showed me again how huge her heart is.....She brought home a slip from school that asked parents to buy recorders for music class. At the bottom of the slip it had a circle to check that said "I would like to donate my change to the music dept to help buy recorders for students who cannot afford to buy one". Before I even read it she says, "Can I do the bottom part and I want to use my own money". Of course she could! What a truly thoughtful thing to do....in addition, my son went and got money of his own to add to the envelope.
It's times like these that make me feel like I truly am doing something right. I do feel like my kids are grounded, kind, and thoughtful kids. I preach Kindness more than anything else in the house. It's actually rule number one of our Family Rules : Always be kind to each other. What I love to see is some of my messages and important beliefs are actually ooozing into the kids and they are mimicking some of it unprompted. An example of this is dinner conversation. I don't allow any electronics during meals or outside the house even. When we have dinner, it's time for us to just be present and talk. I always ask the kids to tell me something about their day. No matter how small, or how bored they may be with me asking, they do come up with something. I really feel proud when one of them starts the conversation all on their own and says, so, how was your day? I feel strongly that kids need to learn social skills and conversation skills. We practice regularly and I don't worry taking them out to eat at a restaurant or in public because they know how to act. It reminds me we just went this past Monday to eat and looked at the table over. The two teenage boys were glued to their phones, simultaneously sipping their sodas, while the mama and dad scrolled on their phones too. Does anyone talk to each other anymore? Can anyone shop without their 3 year old glued to a screen? Yes it's harder. Sometimes infinitely harder. But, I guess that is a value of mine that my kids know how to operate w/out technology. I know I sound like a bit of a hypocrite because I was just talking about how their home ipad usage exploded this past year...but I feel like it's all still in moderation to the situation.
Off my soapbox.
As for me, I'm still working with my Dr. to try and find a new combination that will work. We've tried 3 different things now and I can't say I've seen much/sustained improvement. It's a work in progress, but what I'd really like is to not come home from dropping the kids off and feel such a strong urge to crawl back in my bed until around noon. That has been my pattern during the week and it's just not productive. I don't like it, but yet it is so hard to talk myself out of it. It's the one part of the day where I feel like I can truly exhale because I know the kids are taken care of at school and I can just exhale. Perhaps that's the balance of single parenting and just only school time as the break in parenting. I do need to keep reminding myself that I am still doing this by myself. All the time. So yeah, I guess the depression is still lingering. Going to keep working on it and hope we can work something out and I get some sort of energy/motivation back. Minimally I'll at least be moving around a lot more due to our new soccer schedule ;)
