My kids play football Monday through Thursday nights. FOUR nights per week. They have just over an hour from the time they get home from school until we have to leave for football. This allows us just enough time to find out how their day was, eat some dinner, and get them dressed and ready to go, water bottles filled, cleats double-knotted. It forces me into a pretty tight schedule, and actually it goes pretty smooth.
In theory.
I always have their stuff ready. Clean gear, nut cups ready in some clean compression shorts, water jugs filled and waiting by the door. But for some reason, no matter how early we're done eating and they're getting dressed, that final few minutes always becomes crazy insane panic time. Gotta get the dog out to pee. Kid can't find his other glove. Dad needs to change his motor-oil stained jeans. Did you make sure the bathroom door was closed (so Freddy doesn't get in there and eat the used Kleenex)? Get in the car! Wait I forgot my water bottle! Get in the car. Where is J? Get in the car. Mom there's a rock in my shoe! Get in the car. Wait, now where is your father?!?!
GET IN THE @#&%ING CAR!!!!!!!
Of course that last part is just in my head, but still. Every. Single. Time.
But I am calm by the time we get to the field. So on to last night. J is pouty when we get there because we didn't drive him over to the other side of the complex to drop him off for his practice while A has his game. It's not that far, mind you. But he was sad because it wasn't fair because we dropped A off there yesterday, and now he has to walk over there. We were late the day before. We were (amazingly) not late last night. So I get irritable that he's pouty and ACTUALLY STARTING TO GET TEARY and I just get out of the car and walk to A's field.
Hubby gets over to me after helping pouty J get ready and says J's being a pain, but got him off to his field just fine.
First half of A's game goes off just fine. But they're getting their butts handed to them.
Second half of A's game, I can tell he's sort of lost out there. This is not all that unusual. This year their coaching is pretty unfortunate, and half the kids have no idea what they're supposed to be doing out on the field from play to play. But A gets upset because everyone keeps yelling at him and roughly shoving him to where he needs to be, and he's feeling discouraged.
And then we can tell he's crying.
On the field.
So finally the ref notices and shuffles him off the field. The other side of the field from where we are. Hubby spends the games either helping with the field markers or walking around the field taking zillions of pictures, so he slowly made his way over to where A was, but just tried to observe him from a distance.
It was really hard. I so wanted to go over there, take his helmet off, and hug him and ask him if he was all right. But I didn't want him to be THAT KID. The one who cries at sports. I didn't want his teammates to see his mom hugging him because he's crying. The coaches were talking to him, and it was hard to not know what they were saying to him. Were they being hard on him? But he's in fifth grade, and he needs to learn how to control himself. And how to toughen up if he wants to play a sport like football. In my mind I was thinking, "is he going to want to quit? Will this make him hate football? Are the other kids going to make fun of him now?" AUGH!
I had to sit there. In my chair. While my mom was sitting next to me getting super pissy about how stupid a sport football is, and how this is supposed to be fun, not make kids cry, and how hubby's not getting over to A fast enough. I had to REALLY bite my tongue and keep telling her it's fine. And then she's saying how I have to understand that SHE doesn't LIKE to see her children or her grandchildren cry. Oh, how I wanted to look at her and say, "really? Because I love it. The more pain they're in, the better." Seriously?
After the game, hubby was comforting A across the field after their post-game huddle. Then they came trudging over to us. A's face was puffy and red, and he was very quiet. I just put my arm around his shoulder-pads and said, "are you ok, buddy?" He just said he didn't want to talk about it. My mom and I started walking over to J's practice field by the cars, but she wasn't speaking to me. Awesome. J's practice was fine. But of course he was DYING because apparently his water jug spilled all the water out and he didn't have water for the whole practice. Of course.
By the time A and hubby got to J's field, all was fine. A was happy, giving me a high-five, and racing J to the car. The chit-chat in the car on the way home was completely normal.
He's fine. Seriously fine. I did the right thing, leaving him alone. And he still loves football (although my mother will never believe me).
But I still hugged them tight last night. They're my babies.
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