One of "those" parents?

T-ball game. My daughter in her dress, pink leggings and green t-ball shirt is out in the field. Daddy is behind her – about half the parents are out there.

The ball comes straight to Skadi, she has it! Then that other little brat rips it out of her hand! Then my husband pries the ball out of the little brats hand and hands it back to Skadi.

Parents gasp.

Sigh.

We are a proud YMCA sports family. We appreciate their lack of competitiveness among the younger set. We have participated since Leif was Skadi’s age – that would be for going on three years now – and have taken our turns at coaching.

Every team we have participated on before has had a great coach. Caring, fair, kids adore them. When AB has coached we have for the most part had good experiences. As a coach you are volunteering your time for the sake of the kids. It isn’t just a two hour a week obligation (one hour practice and one hour game). Nope, there is organizing the snacks. Calling parents when games are cancelled (this spring there was a lot of that for these coaches). Thinking up drills. Engaging the kids and generally keeping them corralled with help from the parents (you always hope). Organizing the end of the year party. Ordering trophies.

As coaches, we have had a few parents get mad at us. There was the Indoor Soccer team that we cancelled the picture day (team agreed) and decided to do pictures on our own as the picture day was horribly inconvenient. Of course, there was one parent who missed the e-mails and showed up with her son at the appointed place and time. And she was ticked. And gave us an earful. And we took it all the while mumbling, “but we sent 3 e-mails and talked about it at the prior practice and game?!?”

Then we got chewed out this spring because one of the boys last fall was “never contacted”. Umm he was. We e-mailed the e-mail address we were given for every single update, we phoned twice and the number was disconnected. But apparently we didn’t try hard enough… we finally got a not so happy e-mail back this spring.

But we move on.

2/3’s of the t-ball season has been me. AB and Leif had soccer and other obligations pretty consistently. So AB just got to hear my whining about the coaches and kept reminding me “they are volunteers”.

Skadi is on a team with one other very demure little girl and 8 very rough and tumble boys. Leif is not so rough and tumble. He loves sports and gets in there, but he isn’t and never has been aggressive like I see many of these little boys behaving. The first two practices I thought Skadi was going to hold her own. She got into the dog piles and often came out on top. My friend commented that t-ball really meant tackle ball.

Two practices was about her limit. Then she quit getting into the mix.

And here is the cycle:

Skadi standing waiting for the ball.
Skadi runs to the ball.
Skadi doesn’t get the ball.
Skadi gets frustrated.
“Nobody EVER lets me get the ball!”
Skadi doesn’t get the ball.
Skadi gets bored and wanders off and wants to play on the playground equipment.
Skadi doesn’t want to go back out into the field.

The female coach has been a touch sympathetic towards her, “come on Skadi, let’s you and me get the ball from these boys!”

And she buys it for a few hits.

And if she is lucky she gets a ball and it sustains her for the inning.

And if not the cycle repeats.

I know my daughter is difficult. I know she is a whole bunch of drama wrapped up inside one little girl. I know she is one child in a team of 10. But come on.

The male coach ignores her and gets visibly annoyed with her when she starts screwing around. (But the boys can roll all over the ground and battle each other.)

For the later third of the season AB started showing up since soccer finished – and going into the field with Skadi – and running the bases with Skadi – in an effort to keep his thumb on her and to help her out a bit. Still Skadi never gets to play first base (the coveted position since the players all throw the balls to first base) and is consistently one of the last batters.

And I bite my tongue, because the coaches are doing their best and they are volunteering their time. I didn’t step up (this time).

Then there was last night. Skadi is in the field next to one of the bratty boys. I saw him step on her hand to release the ball. Skadi cried. I saw him pry the ball out of her hand three times. AB talked to both coaches, who shrugged their shoulders.

See we don’t tolerate bullies on our teams when we coach. They sit out. And parents are usually – or at least they act that way towards us – very supportive.

So when I saw AB pry the ball out of the brats hands and give it to Skadi. I sighed. I looked around at the parents scowling. And my friend I was standing with proclaimed, “go daddy! Stand up for your girl!”

The brat started bawling. Dad picked him up, glaring at AB.

AB came off the field saying, “I don’t think I made any friends.”

Yeah probably not. But my daughter finally got her hand on the ball and with that experience she can maybe finish out the season.

T-Ball – not Skadi’s sport. Swimming is still looking like the winner.

On kids and sports

I remember pontificating one time, okay, maybe more times than once, that I thought kids were overscheduled and that *my* kids would only participate in one activity at a time outside of school (Spanish lessons, music lessons and Tumblebus aside since those are extracurricular through school, during their time). If there was more than one activity they wanted to do, then they had to make a decision.

This week my son has two tennis lessons, one soccer practice and swimming lessons.

In my own defense, tennis is ending this week and soccer is just starting. So there is really only one week where this craziness of three sports has taken hold.

Swimming lessons are every Saturday morning. Leif could kind of care less about swimming, but his sister is a fish. It would be easy to let swimming fall off Leif’s schedule, but both AB and I feel that swimming is an ultra-important skill that our children must possess. Our family cabin is on Puget Sound, about 100 feet from the water. There are boats and watercraft of all sorts during the summer. Not to mention that AB grew up swimming and it was his sport of choice. Oh and did I mention that we are hoping for a trip to Hawaii this coming year and want the kids to be able to swim... like in the ocean.

Then you toss in there the sibling factor… Skadi lives every day of her life looking forward to Saturday swimming lessons – this IS her one activity. She knows all the swim teachers and they know her... well. Since she was in parent-tot she was a little swimming star. The teachers love teaching Skadi because she does anything they ask. (This is the one time every week that Skadi does as she is told.) Check out the picture from the one session where her teacher decided to pass her up - way up. She did quite well, but it looked pretty funny in the picture her standing there with a 6, 7 and 9 year old and she was 2.5 and in a swim diaper.

We opted to put her back with kids her own age and the teachers promised not to let her stagnate - so far they haven't!


We did the divide and conquer thing one session where I took Skadi to swimming and Leif stayed home with daddy. And it isn’t that it didn’t work… it just wasn’t ideal. We like being together as a family, even if it is just for an hour of swimming lessons with mom and dad on the sides watching the kids perform.

This was really that turning point when we realized that one activity a week wasn't going to work for long.

Tennis. When I was five years old my mom put me in tennis lessons and I wore the cutest little white skort and went to Mike Cedar Park for my lessons. One of the older boys in my lesson made a snide comment to me – he made fun of me for having Kool-Aid in my water bottle. I responded in the manner that most girls that age would – I stuck my tongue out of him. My mom saw too. I thought I was going to be in so much trouble, but she thought it was hilarious. I played racquet sports off and off through my life. Mostly racquetball, like my mom and stepdad, but I also dabbled with tennis. Leif became strangely intrigued with tennis after playing it on the Wii. A few months ago he started asking for tennis lessons and I scrambled looking for options.

See as a working mom, you are terribly limited in summer sports activities. No one wants to teach summer sports on the weekends! I finally bit the bullet and signed Leif up for four lessons over a span of two weeks as an introduction to tennis.

I sort of expected he would take the class, realize he wasn’t Andre Agassi (not that he knows who Andre is), and move onto something else. Instead Leif has declared that he “loves” tennis and it is “even better than baseball”. And not terribly surprising since the kid loves sports, he isn’t half bad at it. He was sporting his wicked backhand today. Yes, he knows what a backhand is now.

This is where mommy guilt stings. Because I can’t justify to continue taking off at 9:30am Monday and Wednesdays to go grab Leif from school (where he misses ultra-important calendar work) to drive across town for a half hour lesson, then drive back, deposit him back at school and run back to work and get there by 11am in order to further his tennis interest. Can I? I keep telling myself he is only 5 and 11/12th. There are going to be plenty of summers when I am clamoring for camps and such to enroll the kids in. He will probably get his fill of tennis then.

Soccer. Oh soccer, the most beloved of Leif sports. We do soccer through the YMCA in the summers as well as indoor soccer in the winter. And this year, given Leif’s enthusiasm over soccer, we have registered him for the competitive league that starts this fall. I think this officially makes me a soccer mom putting Leif in this league. Leif is all about soccer and during every recess at school he can be found on the soccer field. Daily he begs me to allow him to wear his cleats to school. Today he wanted to "just bring them in case" his teachers decide he can wear cleats on the playground. The boys cheer when he arrives in the morning and direct him to which team “needs help”. Leif very willingly complies because like his father, he likes to help the underdog. Not doing soccer? Not really an option unless I want one unhappy little boy.

I know people who slam sports, who think it ridiculous that we spend time running our kids around for sports practices and events. To each their own. Both AB and I were raised in families that prided physical activity. AB and his brothers were diehard swimmers. I was lucky, my mom worked at the YMCA and so I was able to take every single class I wanted to (hello disco dancing!) and my mom was lucky that she didn't have to pay for childcare.

I played volleyball and basketball from 5th grade through 9th grade, competed in track and field and competed in gymnastics through 10th grade, until I got an afterschool job instead. I ski both downhill and cross country, played tennis and racquetball (2nd in State Juniors in Wyoming), softball (which I absolutely despised though), swam and most recently ran (which I really need to get back to).

My parents taught me I could do anything and enabled me to pursue my interests. I wasn’t great at every sport, but I enjoyed them (except for softball) and learned the value of physical activity.

So when I run home from work on Monday and race to fix a quick dinner to eat on the run to soccer practice that starts at 6:15pm… yeah, it’s not ideal. But it’s the best we can do right now as working parents who are striving to enable their kids’ dreams. Not every child dreams about sports.

Mine does.

Parents behaving badly

There seem to be some general types of parents on the sidelines at kids' sporting events. We have so far been on both sides as parents and AB was a coach this winter for Indoor Soccer. Leif's baseball team so far seems to have the most widely varying and very stereotypical parents we have seen so far.

Here are the types:

A: Yeah, I call them A for a reason. Type A parents are the ones whose kids are the best and most talented and they let everyone know it. (In their eyes.) "Have you noticed that little Johnny can hit that ball everytime? Look at him! See he hit it again. And on top of that he can throw a perfect curve ball. Hey Johnny, come show her your curve ball. Come on son. Show it!"

B: Then there are the opposite. "Look at Billy, how ridiculous. He can't do anything right. Son, what are you doing out there? What are you thinking? Can you at least try to hit the ball?"

C: The chatter moms. "And what did you think the teacher said then? Well of course you know. And those are really cute shoes! Where did you get those shoes? Did you hear we are getting a new restaurant in our part of town!?"

D: The haggered mom with four kids, one of whom is playing. "Tammy I told you not to bother her, no you can't go play on the playground, you guys need to sit right here and watch your sister. No, I don't have any more food, you ate it all. You have your sippy cups. Jamie, aren't you watching your sister? I told you to watch your sister! No, I don't know where the bathroom is. STAY RIGHT THERE."

E: The where did she go mom. "Ok Scotty, if you need anything yell, I will be over with your sister at the playground. I will be watching you if you need something."

F: The varsity dad. "Yeah, I know your coach said to do it this way, but in my experience the best way to hit the ball is like this. Just how we practiced 18 times this weekend. Yeah, I will come out and help you." (Then he never leaves the field and takes over for the coach.)

Seriously we have like all those on my son's team of 12 kids.

I am part C and E depending on the sport. C given the right friends to surround me - which in baseball there are none I am close with. So in baseball, I am mostly E. I refuse to confine my daughter to the sidelines, so we walk the 100 feet to the playground and watch while I keep glancing over my shoulder. When AB shows up we divide and conquer - one of us watches and encourages our son, while the other works hard to wear our daughter out on the playground.

I don't really mind most of the other parent types. Save for one.

Parent type B.

This woman drives me insane. She drags her folding lawn chair with tiny umbrella to her spot and she opens it and doesn't move a muscle but her mouth the entire time.

"Emily, didn't you see that ball? It went right past you!"

"Emily, step on the base. On the base. DID YOU HEAR ME, I SAID STEP ON THE BASE! Go back and step on the base. Yes, that one, third base. What you don't even know what third base is? Sheesh girl."

(Looking at all the other parents.) "I love her I guess, but wow she makes me nuts."

(Who says they "guess" they love their child?)

"Emily, get your tongue in your mouth. TONGUE in mouth! You are going to bite it off and then you won't be able to talk!"

"Hit the ball. You are supposed to actually HIT the ball."

"Get your TONGUE IN YOUR MOUTH!"

She makes me nuts. She makes us all nuts. She makes the coach nuts.

It's YMCA soccer. In the packet we get a list of 100 ways to praise your child.

Poor child has probably never heard a single one.

Seriously.

I just enrolled Leif in the local more competitive soccer league starting this fall. Yes, registration started March 1st for fall soccer. I am only guessing it is going to get 10x worse in that league.

(Ok, I am done now.)