Some observations from a soccer mom

Let me preface this with - soccer mom is a general term and many of these observations apply to and have been personally observed by myself throughout several different sports.

I love being a soccer mom.

I love watching my kids compete.

I have three children who are already at a young age very involved in multiple sports.

No I am not planning their college careers.

No I do not care how much you love your soccer club/tennis coach/swim instructor

cuz guess what?

I love mine.

No I am not interested in switching to a bigger/different/more challenging/more prestigious/just different because I am not currently getting along with the coach team.

Dance with the one that brought you is our motto.

I am not going to go hop around teams because I think that such and such team will give my now 7 year old a better chance at a college scholarship.

No I really don't care how many goals your kid scored last week.

Nope - I don't need to know that your coach thinks she is gifted.

Did she have fun? Was there an interesting story from your travels?

Tell me about that.

Now here are some things that I think are awesome to yell from the sidelines (and yes - I do like to cheer from the sidelines. That is my kid out there. I am emotionally and financially invested in this game so if I want to say yeah then by george - that is what I am going to do...)

Anyway

Stuff I like to yell from the sidelines

Yeah!!!

Hooray!!!

You get that ball!!!!

You are doing great!!!

Good try!!!

Any variation of WOOHOO or anything else high pitched.

LET'S GO (INSERT YOUR TEAMS NAME HERE)

Husband does a great job of keeping quiet on the sidelines but I would say that his number one most used phrase is

GET BACK

(you know like on defense not like stop off beotch or anything awful like that)

Anyway, I digress again,

Some of my favorite and most obnoxious things (in my humble opinion don't get all huffy) that are yelled from the sidelines that I try really really really hard never ever to say (and trust me sometimes it is hard to not have these things just come flying out of your mouth so if you just shouted it this morning at lacrosse or something - no judgement here - just saying some general guidelines)

SHOOT!!!!!!

CROSS CROSS CROSS CROSS

My personal favorite:

PASS IT TO (INSERT YOUR KIDS NAME HERE) PASS IT TO (INSERT YOUR KIDS NAME HERE)

FIGHT FIGHT

PUSH HER BACK

DON'T LET THAT GIRL PUSH YOU AROUND - YOU PUSH HER BACK

BOOT IT!!!!

KICK IT WITH YOUR TOE IF YOU HAVE TO!!!!

COME ON REF WHAT ARE YOU THINKING????

COME ON (INSERT SOMEONE ELSE'S KID HERE) WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???

Seriously?

People crack me up.

Now I get it - there is nothing like watching your kid on that field. Nothing. I get nervous and involved and sick to my stomach and all of that. My kids are 10, 7, and 5 so yeah - I totally get it.

I CANNOT imagine what the parents of college athletes go through.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

That is.....

if I picked the right team.

;)

Last ski of the season

We just finished up our 4 day ski weekend which, incidentally, will wind up being our last ski of the season because this has been a very strange winter and we are fresh out of snow.

So here are some random thoughts and quotes from the weekend:

From my 5 year old as he is flying by me:

"Look out Momma! I am going smoking fast!!!!!!!

I will reiterate from a previous ski post:

little kids are crazy.

My seven year old is a skiing machine. Indefatigable I tell you. If you know her you know she is such an easy going little person - super quick to laugh with a very unique outlook on life. Let me tell you - on skis - she is a maniac but in the same easy unique way. She is going to be quite the skier I think. I love the way that she raises her arms up and goes

"WooHoo!!!!!"

Whenever she is finished with something especially hard or fast.

I love that the biggest gnarliest jackass (excuse the language) of a skier or a snowboarder will come screaming to a stop to stand and stare down at a little kid that has fallen. Total silence and total look of solidarity like -

"Dude - bummer when you fall. I will totally call ski patrol if you need me to. Been there done that. I completely remember what it was like to go down when I wanted to do the big runs when I was five."

I have been popping Tylenol and ibuprofen like it was candy. Candy I tell you.

Another good quote from my 5 year old.

"Ok come on guys - we are going to rock this slope like it is dynamite!"

When you are skiing/snowboarding with little kids you gotta go Gambler style - you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.

We were at dinner one night and my 10 year old clears her throat while looking at a menu and says,

"Hello? Hello? Is thing thing on?"

We all look up.

She then has her eyes on the menu and says,

"I speak for the children (if you have seen the Lorax this is funnier)

and I would like to discuss dessert."

Oh man I laughed hard that that one.

Tylenol precise pain relieving cream totally does exactly what it advertises that it does. It relieves pain. Be ready to get your sinuses cleared when you go on a ski weekend with me because I love that stuff!

Aunt Heather taught the kids the term yard sale in skiing. It basically means you had a big enough crash that all of your ski stuff is spread out all over the mountain - you know - yard sale style. Well my 7 year old had a really good yard sale and I got to her and her Daddy was brushing the snow out of her teeth and she looked up all snowy and disheveled and said,

"Now THAT was a yard sale"

Man I laughed so hard on that slope. Really really hard.

Here is my biggest piece of advice for beginning skiers or returning to skiing skiers or - wow my body is getting old skiers....

TAKE A LESSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I was doing pretty well. I am certainly not a speed demon but I was improving a little with each run and having a fun day on our second day of the trip. I was actually thinking to myself,

"Self - you are totally rocking this slope"

when

WHAM

Yep - I bit it. Hard. The bad thing about this particular bite out of the slope was I fell backwards and then sort of spun so my head was facing downhill and my legs still stuck in my skis (because I initially fell backwards) were twisted at very strange - not good for your knees - kinds of angles and I was stuck. Thankfully the other family that we were skiing with's Dad (from here on referred to as otherfamiliesDad) was right behind me. I was saying,

ohouchhelpI'mstuckouchouchouchmylegsmylegsmylegs

and he went all rescue guy on me and threw himself down and punched my ski so that my leg released. Man - I was so thankful to have my leg out of that ski. It was pretty funny because another skier came up and asked if we needed ski patrol (you remember the solidarity thing) and otherfamiliesDad says, "um maybe".

Long story short I got myself unkinked. I was fine (sore but fine) and I kept on skiing. Well the next day I just kept getting worse. Instead of rocking the slope like dynomite I was snowplowing it like a big slow bulldozer. Terrible I tell you, terrible.

Anyway - I called the ski resort from the chairlift and told them that I was having a crisis of confidence and needed a lesson. Then I left my family and decided to take my lesson right away while they were all eating their lunch so that I could continue on as normal for the rest of the day.

Here is how the lesson went:

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: ok I am just going to watch you ski down this easy green and see what is going on

Me: ok

Me: - ski down slowly turning perfectly the whole way (because it was a much easier hill)

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: Well, um, that looked perfect

Me: No no that is not what I do - we gotta do a harder one

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda:ok

Me - ski down a harder hill turn well to the right completely messing up my turns to the left

SkisinstructorladynamedBrenda: oh I see - you just need to get your left knee to go a little more to the left

Me: knee to the left?

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: Yes - think left knee out

Me: ski perfectly down a harder hill

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: ok that was perfect - now this time just think left knee out and right hip the other way

Me: left knee out right hip the other way?

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: yep that's it

Me:ski perfectly down a harder hill

Then we go down a way harder hill and I throw it into a snow plow at one steep part.

Me: Well what about that snowplow?

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: What about it? You did great. You went back to your basics when you were in trouble and then went back to your turns once you were out. Great job.

Me: So I should do that again if I am on a hard hill?

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: yep just like that

Me: well ok then

End of lesson:

Me: So I'm fixed?

SkiinstructorladynamedBrenda: all fixed

and I was - totally fixed. Went to the top of the mountain on the last day of skiing. Skied down all the blues behind my crazy family. Never fell once and had a blast. (Still not winning any races but you know - keeping up which has been my goal the entire time.)

65 bucks for left knee out right hip the other way and snowplow if you need it

Worth EVERY penny.

Take the lesson I am telling you. They know the right words to say. I promise.

Now I am cleaning all the ski stuff and putting it away and getting ready for - wait for it - one of my four favorite Seasons ('cuz I really love them all on account of being good natured and all of that...)

SPRING!!!!!!

Stuff you learn when you take three little kids skiing on a regular basis

You need a label maker or a roll of masking tape and a sharpie. Now I know, I know, you say,

"Holly - you are obsessed with labels"

but I am telling you - you don't have a prayer keeping up with all the stuff - not a prayer - I promise you.

Now there are several ways to keep up with the stuff but I have gone with the bag method. Each person has a ski bag - as their ski stuff comes out of the wash or gets dried and cleaned it can just go back into the carefully labeled ;) bag. Now I even put a little label on the tag of each child's under layers because they all have black in different sizes so that they will hand down to boy or girl. This way I just look at the tag and I don't have to think about what size fits what kid which you know can add seconds if not minutes to the process and really - who has that kind of time.

When you are skiing with just your husband or by yourself it is easy to complain about the cold and take your time getting down the mountain. The second you have a kid with a wet glove you find yourself sacrificing your nice warm gloves without thinking twice. (Now you will think a lot more than twice about this decision as your fingers turn blue but the initial reaction is pretty much instant.)

The same holds for once you begin skiing with your children. This leads me to my first point:

Little kids are crazy.

They are fearless and they go smoking smoking fast. Like tiny torpedoes heading down the mountain at breakneck speed. You wanna talk about a loss of control? Yeah - big time. Not theirs - they believe they are in total control at every moment - your loss of control is huge. There is no "let's hold hands" or "stay together" you have given them a license to speed and I promise you they will use it. Now don't let this scare you - they are like Gumby on skis - they can fall and crash in ways that would literally put you in an operating suite but they just bounce right back up again and keep going. Hence the lack of fear. The only real lesson to be learned here is - you gotta step up your skiing game in a big way.

This leads me to my second point: If you are a cautious skier like myself you go from sweeping s turns to Olympic speed (at least that is what it feels like) when you hear those dreaded words -

Let's Race!

So here is a purely hypothetical one (because who in their right mind would admit this if it actually happened to them). Let's say you wrench your knee a little bit the day before (you know chasing the children at breakneck speed) and being a good packer you hypothetically put some Tylenol precise pain relieving cream in your pocket - again hypothetically. So you hypothetically have the cream in your pocket and you go to the bathroom and decide to put some on the poor aching knee while you pee. Hypothetically. Here we come to the hypothetical lesson - let's say you are right handed. Don't use your right hand to put the tingly ben gay like cream on your knee because then you are going to have to wipe with your left - totally awkward in a purely hypothetical way because no way that happened to me and for sure no way I blogged about it and for sure no way when it didn't happen to me did I think to myself,

"Darn it self - now you are gonna have to blog that one."

Anyway - I digress. Back to skiing with little kids...... ahem

You need to pack a bunch of food and snacks in your bag. Skiing is like swimming. Makes em hungry like bears. Mean cranky bears who should not be let loose in a concession area.

You really have to get your own skis and snowboards if you are going to live in a ski area and go on any kind of a regular basis. It is just a huge waste if you don't. There is way too much good resale out there and now that everyone in the family has all of their own equipment (purchased at rocking prices if I do say so my super savvy shopper self - alliteration - sweet!) anyway now that everyone has their own stuff things are faster, cheaper, and easier.

It is an amazing thing to do as a family because it really is a family activity that everyone can enjoy. We talk and laugh and make stories that we will have to tell forever.

Then you get to the reality check when you come home and dump tons and tons of wet, dirty stuff on the mudroom floor all waiting to be washed, cleaned and re-sorted.

The plus side of this - the children will be crumpled in little exhausted balls on the couch so you totally have time to get to it.....

oh wait - what about the little crumpled Mommy ball on the couch?

Well - you can always get to it tomorrow