The Ostracized Soccer Mom

The last two seasons of soccer, all the moms sat together during practices twice a week, chatting, while we watched our kids.  We all got matching shirts with little sparkly soccer balls, to cheer on our kids on game days. We all sat together at games, yelling encouragements, clapping when goals were scored. We weren't besties, but we all had something in common, so we hung out.  I am not normally comfortable in most social situations, but there was a consistency, a routine, that alleviated some of my anxiety. I felt as though I got along with these women, although I did do a lot of self-censoring, just in case.

But this season is different. 

I am usually the first mom to arrive at practice this time, so I park my chair along the sidelines.  None of the moms will sit with me this season.  Where ever I put my lawn chair, the rest of the moms are not.  Instead, they sit far enough away that I cannot hear what they are saying.  At first I thought that it was a fluke of some sort, but it has happened three or four times now.  My husband, who never notices anything, has even joked about it, asking me if I have cooties or something.  I have no answer to give him.

I admit that it does look rather sad--me sitting by myself on one end of the sidelines, with a crowd of people sitting on the other end.  One of the mothers has designated herself as Switzerland, of course.  She will place her stuff between me and the other group, and she will walk over to me for a few minutes of conversation before she heads over to the other group, leaving me isolated once more. Somehow, that just seems to make it worse.

What did I do?  Am I just a terrible soccer mom?  I have thought about it, sitting by myself, all alone, on my end of the field.  I bathe regularly, and I brush my teeth daily, so it's not a hygiene issue. There's no specific dress code that I have been able to discern. When it is my turn to bring snacks, I bring the good, organic snacks instead of the high-fructose corn syrupy stuff.  I don't work with any of these people.  I haven't talked mean to any of them, at least not intentionally(and really, if someone is mad at you for some reason, shouldn't they at least tell you what they are mad at you for, so you can apologize?).

At first, when I realized that nobody would sit with me, I was upset.  My immediate reaction was to take the blame.  I must have done something to displease the group in some way, my brain yelled, and I must make amends by sucking up more; something along those lines.  Since I sometimes stick my foot in my mouth without realizing it, that response was not unusual.  Rationality won out, for once.  I could not think of a single thing to warrant this treatment.  I went through a few stages of grief--anger, disbelief, etc.  Okay, I even cried a little bit, but to be fair, it had been a long day, and I was out of chocolate. 

I can manage this for the next month or so.  I am used to this sort of treatment, after a childhood full of worse.  Probably won't be the last time I see it, either.   I am made of pretty sturdy stuff, and I will survive. Maybe I'll start a support group; surely I am not the only soccer mom out there who has been in this position?  I am not sure what I will do next season yet, but I will cross that bridge when I get there. 

I Hulk Out on Occasion

It was our usual hour of practice on the soccer field.  All of us soccer moms, and one soccer dad, were watching our boys scrimmage against each other in a three on three.   It was an attempt to teach them defense and passing as strategies.  Silly as it might seem to a four year old, they actually appeared to be finally getting it. 

It was a balmy 94 degrees outside. The dust from the parking lot swirled around as the wind blew  hot air at us all. There had been a lot of random flailing, pushing and pulling on shirts during the practice.  The boys are all competitive about being the one in front of the ball, which is why they were working on passing.  Several times play had stopped because someone knocked heads or got poked in the eye.  All of us soccer parents had given our boys kisses and sent them back out onto the field.  The game had begun to have some flow to it and then...Dylan shoved Zane hard in the back and sent him flying.  Zane ended face first in the grass, after a bounce.

"HEY!!!"

I wanted to tell the person yelling to be quiet, until I realized that it was me.  I hadn't even realized that I was on the field until I was leaning over my boy.  I had gone full-on Mama Bear and "Hulked out"(in honor of the Avengers movie opening this weekend!).  Dylan took one look at me in all my Hulkiness and ran crying to his Mama, which was probably in his best interest.   I picked Zane up, because he was crying, and looked him over. 

He didn't seem the worse for having kissed the grass, but I still got a little teary, because he's my kid and I don't like to see him cry.  Thankfully, my sunglasses hid my eyes.  Dylan came over with his dad and apologized to Zane for the shove, and then I carried my son over to the sidelines. I let him tell me what happened in his teary voice while he calmed down.  He had a few gulps of Gatorade to go with his sniffles, and sat a minute or two.  Then we had the following conversation:

"Are you ready to go back in there?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"Okay, well, are you ready to suck it up and go score me a goal?"

"Yes."

And then Zane ran back out there, back into play.   I was so proud of him.  I know what it feels like to hit the ground so hard that you bounce; I wouldn't have been upset if he had wanted to call it a night.  But boys are pretty resilient when it comes to sports, so Dylan and Zane were right back out there together, going after that ball with their usual enthusiasm.  When practice was finished, we packed up and headed home.  While we were driving home, my husband, who had seen the entire incident, took my hand tenderly in his. 

"I didn't know that you could move that fast," he said.  Neither did I. 

And So It Begins Again

Soccer season...time to don my Soccer Mom jersey and head for the fields.

First game of 2012 is a little different than the first game of 2011.  The tiny three year olds who wandered aimlessly around the field are no more.  In their place are four year olds who are both taller and tougher.  And bigger--Zane's gone up two whole shoe sizes since last season.  And definitely more confident.  Even the boy who cried just about every game last season is ready to play.  We have a new player, a girl, and she cried at the last practice.  Because it was over, and she didn't want to stop playing.

In the fall, my son was still working on running AND kicking the ball.  Now he doesn't even have to think about it.  Last season the concept of kicking the ball into the goal was strange and foreign. Now that is all Zane and his teammates want to do.  They have yet to learn about the concept of sharing the ball, so I expect that the game today will look very similar to rugby and not soccer.  Which is fine with me.  I want all of them to have a great time. 

What is new this time around is that my husband, who is more curmudgeonly than I am,  is now overseeing all of the coaches in the U4 league.  He has been in charge of setting up the teams, making sure that the coaches knew who their players were, handing out the uniforms, getting the schedule of games set up, etc.  Larry's never done anything like this before, and he's very intent on doing a good job.  I'm very proud of how he has organized everything and how much more smoothly everything has gone this time around. People know what is going on and where they are supposed to be. 

So I head out with my son to his first game of the season(Larry had to be at the fields early), expecting that everything will be wonderful.  Which is completely silly.  We are talking about four-year-olds. 

And their parents!  Eeek!

The End of Soccer Mom Season

Today is the last day of my son's soccer season. It's been a huge learning experience for all of us, and I'd like to think that we've all grown a bit. My son seemed to have a great time. My husband learned that he enjoys coaching, something that I already knew.

And what have I learned?

I've learned that three and four-year-olds do not speak the same language as forty-year-old coaches.

I've learned that grapes or oranges make the best half-time snacks. Bring some wipes along. Sticky chins tend to gather grass, dirt, and other odds and ends.

I've learned that the kid who decides to lay down in the middle of the field in a fit of pique will immediately rise up at the mention of snacks. Sort of like Scooby-Doo.

I've learned that not every mother remembers the name of her child's team.

I've learned that if you don't remember the name of your child's team, don't try to fake it. Yelling "Go Cougars!" as the Jaguars run out on the field is not good.

I've learned that all game play stops completely when an airplane flies low over the field. This includes the older kids, and by that I mean the dads.



I've learned that even if there's no official score keeping, there's always someone out there keeping count. At least the goals that my own child made. Three on purpose, three by accident.

I am officially off soccer mom duty, until the spring. Which means that I can sleep late on Saturdays again!!! It may be selfish, but yay me!

So It Begins

It's that time of the year when a young boy's thoughts turn to Halloween candy...and soccer. We signed our son up for soccer, and it's go time. Today is the first game.

We went to pick out soccer shoes a few weeks ago. It was a family event! They had LOTs of shoes...and nobody around to help you figure out what shoe. Larry, Zane and I were completely discombobulated. What are turf shoes? How are they different from cleats? Which shoes should we buy? My son was not as stymied as his parents. He knew exactly what he wanted. He marched over and grabbed...a pair of PINK shoes.

Really, son? That's what you pick? I rub the side of my face where that vein starts bulging. The other soccer moms were snickering. We kept throwing black and white shoes in front of him, but he was very firm in his decision...until we found these YELLOW shoes. YELLOW. As in, brighter than the sun YELLOW.



The picture doesn't really do justice to this color. These YELLOW shoes glow in the dark, without a black light.

First soccer practice, we had to leave the house with two chairs, a canopy, an umbrella, a cooler full of water and gatorade, a soccer outfit, shoes and shin guards. For practice. None of the other parents had a canopy set up. None of the other parents had a cooler. They brought chairs, and a couple of bottles of water. My husband is a big believer in being over prepared. My big thing to remember was a camera.

There are six kids on the team, two girls. Right off the bat, you could tell who had the mad soccer "skillz". The older kids were much more confident. Zane started kicking his ball, and he kept kicking it. We finally caught up to him three fields over. He was kicking in a straight line, if that counts.

The practices have been a huge learning curve for everyone, including the coach. Three year old kids don't know what a pass is, and they don't know what it means to "stop" the ball. They don't know their left from their right yet. Adjustments had to be made. Adjustments also have to be made for the short attention spans. There was a lot of playing in the dirt, poking ant piles, and chasing dragonflies. I promised Larry that I would do a better job of paying attention, but that really depends on the dragonflies.

But now the big day is here. The first soccer game of my son's life. My husband is more psyched than I expected, and I guess that I am excited as well. I just want him to have fun and be a kid...but if he happens to kick the ball into the goal by accident, I am going to do a victory dance.

Soon To Be Soccer Mom

We signed up my son for soccer. There were several reasons for this, but the main reason is that the boy loves to run, and we thought that soccer would be a good way for him to do that. Fortunately, the local league just started a 3-4 year old program. So we went to one of their open registrations and signed the boy up.

I thought it was a little strange that they made me sign an oath that I wouldn't be one of those parents who scream epithets and other unmentionables at the children, the referees, and the coaches. These are three-year-olds, not professionals. Are you kidding? I said. Is this really a problem? They don't even keep score! The looks I got when I asked that question spoke volumes. But it's like unicorns--I have to see one to believe it. I just can't fathom that level of, pardon the term, douchebaggery. It's foreign to me.

I don't consider myself to be competitive, except when I play along with Jeopardy!--then I rule. But my experiences with athletics were slim to nil--I never liked to get my hands dirty, I had the attention span of a gnat, and I couldn't catch a ball to save my life. The kid the coaches always sent out to "deep right field", where the grass was very tall and the ball never came? That would be me. I thought about running cross country, but then I decided that intellectual pursuits were much, much more air conditioned. What is more important to me is that I try my best; I have no illusions about my athletic skills. That is what I expect of my son--that he try his best.

My husband played football until he was in high school, but he didn't really have a choice. In Texas, high school football is king and you aren't a "man" if you don't at least try to play it. So Larry has a little competitiveness in him, which is mainly channeled into the San Antonio Spurs. I can't see either of us ever screaming at coaches or players or even referees during the course of a soccer game. If someone deliberately hurts my son, maybe. Okay, probably. I would likely be more concerned about the injury to my son than whether or not his team was winning or losing. I can't say for sure.

I have other concerns. My brother and his sons are very involved in soccer, and everyone knows their names. Soccer comes easy to those boys; they are natural athletes. There may be some expectations of my boy because of who he is related to. I feel like I need to guard him from overzealous coaches, and he hasn't even started playing.

The heat this summer has been horrific, especially in the afternoons. That can't be healthy for anyone, let alone a little kid, but I guess they have to get used to it at some point. I plan on having tons of water available for practice and games, and have bought several cases of 4000SPF Broad Spectrum sunscreen.

On top of all of this is my reluctance to see myself in the category of "soccer mom". I refuse to drive a minivan, and not just because my best friend would disown me. I just never thought of myself in that role, although I probably should have at least considered it. I don't even know what the "soccer mom" uniform is supposed to look like--do we all have to wear the same shoes? What if the pants make my butt look especially large?

I have tried to rein in my rush to overreact, but because this is a new experience for the entire family, I can't entirely let it go just yet. Like I said, I have to see it to believe it. He's only three, and he's never played on a team before. Learning to play as a team is a big deal, and I doubt that Zane, or anyone his age, is developmentally ready for that. The games will probably consist of a bunch of aimless running around punctuated by coincidental kicks of the ball. Nothing to worry about.

Nothing to worry about at all.