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I’m Beginning To Dread Weekends

April 27, 2009 in Fashion, Health, Sports by Sara | 2 comments

It seems as though we have started a pattern.

Every weekend someone has to get hurt.

There is a history of this in my immediate family. For years we dreaded the 4th of July. Without fail something would befall one of us kids. One year I burned my hand badly, another year my brother had an encounter with the sharp end of a board that may or may not have been partially my fault.

Last weekend, Elena got kicked by a horse.

This weekend?

Remember that Katie is playing on her first softball team?

And that she is playing catcher?

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Well, see that ball headed toward her glove? Evidently even at age 10 the pitcher has enough oomph behind her throws that if you put your ungloved hand up before the ball smacks nice and secure into your gloved hand, you can do damage to said hand.

She complained about her little finger a bit and because I am a kind and concerned mother, I told her to put some ice on it, gave her some Motrin and returned to whatever I was doing.

And then when it looked more swollen this morning I sprang into action by giving her more Motrin and more ice.

Then I made her practice piano.

Turns out her songs have a lot of notes requiring the use of the right hand’s fifth finger.

Oh, and when one of my friends suggested that it might be broken, I promptly poo-pooed her.

But then I went upstairs and found Katie behind her closed bedroom door with big old tears in her eyes. She looked at me pitifully and said, “Mama, it really hurts.”

Yeah, I guess it did.

Cause it was broken.

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Her piano teacher is going to be thrilled. I’m steeling myself for a scolding. Piano teachers sometimes don’t understand parents who put their children’s fingers in harm’s way.

Luckily it looks like she’ll only be out of commission for a week.

I can’t wait to see what next weekend has in store!

Soda Pop and the Best Coach Ever

April 20, 2009 in Sports by Sara | 3 comments

Katie had her first softball game on Saturday.  It was quite exciting and since a lot of our girls have not played before this season and at least half their practices have been rained out by this very wet April we are having, we were thrilled that the final score was only 4 to 3 in favor of the other team.

The girls are playing lots of different positions to find the one that fits them best.  JD and I were as surprised as the next person when we heard, “Katie! You’re catching! Get your gear on!”

What?

Wait a minute.  I wasn’t exactly prepared for my girl to be crouched down with the ball flying at her head and the batter swinging  a deadly instrument 2 feet in front of her.

Yes, I know that’s why they wear safety equipment.  What’s your point?

She loved it.  It was her favorite position.  She liked it because she was right in the middle of the action.

And of course my first born driven child enjoyed the responsibility involved.

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She did a good job stopping the ball and getting it back to the pitcher.

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The girls decided that they would name themselves the “Soda Pops”.

No, I have no idea why.  I guess they liked the way it sounded.  And it’s better than some of the names they suggested.  Maybe they just want to be liked.  Who doesn’t like soda pop?  Although it’s a bit Yankee sounding to me.

We don’t have soda pop in the south.  We have coke.  As in, “Do you want a coke? Okay.  What kind?  Dr Pepper, Sprite, Orange?”

We like to keep things simple.

This is what they dreamed up for the spirit part of opening day.

dsc_0335The things on their heads are supposed to be the tops of the bottles and the things they are holding are the straws.  And although you can’t really tell, they also had their hair painted orange.  Although in truth it looked less orange and more like a really bad dye job from a box of color probably named, “Burnt Sienna”.

This is her coach.

dsc_0332We couldn’t have picked a better coach for Katie if we had tried.  He is so good with these girls.  He is encouraging and funny and he has a way of correcting them that makes them want to just keep after it until they get it right.  Every time Katie comes off the field from practice, she is just beaming with accomplishment

It’s an amazing thing to watch this man take time from his busy life to give to these girls. To have such a good guy influencng them.  And it’s incredible watching them turn into softball players under his steady hand and encouraging voice.  And his assistant coach?  He’s just as wonderful.

Those are some lucky Soda Pops.

Or Why I’ll Never Be Mistaken For Mia Hamm

April 2, 2009 in Bloggable Moments, Sports by Sara | 1 comment

When it was time to sign up for spring soccer I was feeling good. Elena had an excellent coach last fall who we all thought the world of. I gleefully filled out the form including the coach request.

“Coach Angie, please!”

Then Coach Angie and her husband decided to buy a house that took them 20 minutes down the road from us. Here in Northern Virginia that meant she might as well have moved to Africa.

No more Coach Angie.

After many pleading e-mails JD stepped up and said that he would coach so that we could keep the team together. I would be his assistant coach. Which of course meant I would take care of the snack sheet.

Between the two of us we have played exactly ZERO soccer games.

First practice was last week. I missed it because Katie has softball practice at exactly the same time on another field far, far away. JD said it went fine. They are 1st graders, after all. How badly could we screw them up anyway?

Turns out we were about to find out.

JD left town on Monday for a week long conference. Leaving me to coach both the second practice and the first game on Saturday. Luckily a dear friend (even dearer now) volunteered to help me out. Thank you Matt. You are my new hero.

There are a few things that tell me that perhaps coaching soccer is not exactly my spiritual gift.

1. I was way more interested in the conversation the mommies were having on the sideline and kept getting drawn into them.

2. Because of this and the fact that the kids are still working on knowing when the ball goes out of bounds, I looked up to see that the whole pack of girls had kicked the ball way into the next field and were showing no signs of stopping. This may have been the moment that Matt yelled (sweetly) across to me “Get control of your team, Coach Whitlock!”

3. I have no idea how many girls make up a team. We had 8 girls show up for practice and so we had 4 on each side. Perhaps I better read the rule book before Saturday.

4. When Matt asked me if we kicked or rolled in the out of bounds ball, silence fell and I think I heard crickets chirping in the background. Again, a look at the rule book may be in order.

5. During drills it became very evident that all the girls were better kickers than I was.

My lack of experience seemed to do nothing to dampen the spirits of those eight sweet girls. Neither did the rain that fell just heavily enough to soak us but not enough to make the field too muddy to play. They had a great time and would have stayed out there as long as we’d let them.

And while I may not know the rules, I can encourage the heck out of them. So I’ll leave the coaching up to JD and Matt. I’ll take care of the hugging and squeezing and jumping up and down when they score a goal.

Together, we may just make it through the season.

a few from last fall's team

a few from last fall's team

Run, Baby Run

March 26, 2009 in Aging, Health, Sports by Sara | 2 comments

A couple of years ago it became clear that my metabolism was not what is used to be. By that, I mean that I could no longer eat a whole sleeve of Girl Scout cookies (trefoils, please. I’m a purist.) and not see the results of it the next time I tried to put on my jeans.

And since I made a vow long ago that I would never allow my butt to be bigger than my husband’s, I knew I had to take action.

For a while increasing the speed of my walks helped, but it didn’t last. I realized that I was going to have to step things up a bit. I’d run on and off for years and thought that picking that back up might do the trick.

Here’s the thing. I never really liked to run. I’d be miserable the first half mile, cussing by the second and giving up by the third. I’d get shin splints and my feet would hurt. I’d be consistent for several weeks and then fall off the wagon completely.

Until now.

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Podrunner Intervals have totally changed the way I feel about running. The music is good and the pace is just fast enough to make me break a sweat without being so fast that I think I might die. Because I’d been running a bit before I started the first one, I jumped right into the 8K weeks. Now I’m on week 4 of the 10K and really enjoying it. It’s motivating and it moves you along so gradually that you hardly realize that you are running a little bit farther and longer each week.

So get some good fitting running shoes (this is REALLY important, so have someone fit you who knows what they are doing) and download these mixes (either directly from the website above or from itunes) and get started.

Your butt will thank you.

Thankfully His Aim Was A Little Off

March 19, 2009 in Family, Mothering, Sports by Sara | No comments

Tonight was the first night of softball practice for Katie. I thought the child was going to jump right out of her skin waiting for the time to leave. I didn’t even have to tell her to get her stuff together eight million times like I have to do every other single time we leave the house.

Tonight was a gathering of 4 teams on one field. That’s a lot of 10 year old little girls. That’s also a lot of bats swinging and balls flying. Luckily there were no injuries tonight. Unless you count the hundreds of sore muscles those coaches are going to have from stretching all kind of different ways trying to catch the wild throws of those girls. Next time I’m taking a giant bottle of Motrin to pass out to all of them.

Just making use of my talents. And hoping if I do that they won’t ask me to be the team mother and plan parties.

Hearing the bats hitting the balls and the balls smacking into the girl’s gloves took me right back to by playing days.

So did seeing several people spit.

I had forgotten about the spitting.

That’s not something you see much at soccer games.

Thankfully it was not the coaches that were spitting. It was the parents.

One dad spit twice right in front of my shoes. I had to resist the urge to slug give him a dirty look.

But now that I know his daughter isn’t on Katie’s team…

All bets are off.

The Boys of Summer

March 17, 2009 in Family, Good Ole Days, Sports by Sara | 3 comments

Once those memories start comin’, you just can’t stop them. Writing about playing softball yesterday brought back many memories not only of my days on the diamond, but also the many, many, many hours our whole family spent watching my brother play baseball.

Unlike me, my brother had some actual talent for the game. He was big and he could hit. He often got picked for the all-star team. He was good.

Random note. One of his coaches was named “Milkman”. I don’ t remember why. He just was.

One day Mike was playing in a game and got hit square on the nose with a baseball. Which now that I’m thinking about it was thrown by the brother of the pitcher with the super long fingernails on my first softball team…what a small world (or small town). He went down like a log. He fell straight back with his bat still clutched in his hand. My mom was out of the stands like a shot. I remember seeing her red Dr. Scholls sandal lying in the dirt by first base where it fell off as she ran to see about him. He suffered a broken nose and a couple of really good black eyes, but the poor guy who hit him was just beside himself.

Good times.

Now that I have my own children involved in sports, I have so much more sympathy for all the time my parents spend shuffling us between practices and games. One year my parents actually volunteered to be the scorekeepers and we were at the ballpark ALL THE TIME.

I don’t remember hating it. My girls act like I’m asking them to stick needles in their eyes if they have to accompany us to the other’s practice. They roll around on the ground and tell me how bored they are going to be.

I liked going to the ballpark. I was sure to find some of my friends there.

And as I got a little older, I’ll have to say that the thought of spending the evening watching cute boys run around the bases wasn’t half bad.

I imagine that’ll happen round here soon enough……