Not A Soccer Mom

In North Dakota elementary gym class they taught your basics: football, basketball, softball, volleyball. Then there was...hockey. (We also climbed a rope and I set the school record, until my little brother beat it 2 years later. He's like that. Always.) (Oh, and our gym teacher also held races at the local park-Oak Park-every Monday night, my brother and I used to do the mile run. I was one of the fastest 5th grade girls, which isn't too hard to do when there aren't that many girls. I still remember that Leah was the girl I couldn't beat, and I delivered a newspaper to her house every morning on my route. It was still fun to get the ribbons and my little brother and I loved it, and my mom and dad used to come cheer us on. Anyway.) The point of this is that we missed something that seems to be very important in Utah culture-soccer. It was never a big deal since in junior high I did track and then I did swimming, and then I stopped and did AP classes (why do they take over your life?). There is a point to ALL of this.

Last Saturday I, being the wonderful sister that I am, helped my sister out by driving her daughter to a soccer game. I packed up the kids, packed up treats, a blanket, everything necessary for a great time at a soccer game, and we headed out. Kiersten is 9 (almost?) and on a comp league, so it was clear out in Farmington. There she met up with all of her other cute little soccer-playing friends and they started the game. Kiersten didn't play the first 6 minutes so we could run to the port-a-potty. Then she was ready to go!

She has hot pink shoes, I totally approve.

Will spent the game crawling off the blanket and eating the grass. Marvelous. 

Here's where the problems started. All the other parents had chairs. We had a blanket. Thats ok, Ruth took up residence with the girls on the blanket in front of us (at first they looked confused, then they acted as if everything was normal and only glanced back at me every once in a while) and Will and I had ample room on our blanket. Then the parents started yelling useful things to all the kids. I can't even remember what they were, the instructions were so foreign. I understand the goal of the game is to kick the ball in the net and the goalie is supposed to keep the ball out. But the actual parts each player does? Nada. It seemed like Kiersten was supposed to stop at a line, but not really, maybe she was only supposed to go so far past it? 

At one point everyone was yelling good things to Kiersten about what a 'lovely' and 'beautiful' pass she had just given. I understand the statements, but I could not have critiqued her pass to save my life. I generally munched on our snacks and tried to keep Ruth from picking up other people's stuff.

Kiersten is standing up and drinking from a water bottle. I think she was supposed to be sitting down.

Converse and a 3-tiered skirt. My babe has style! No idea whose fan she is holding. 

Then it started to rain. Just slightly. So I stood up and bundled myself and Will inside our blanket. Every. Single. Other. Person. opened up a HUGE umbrella and sat underneath of it. I felt a little like a black sheep. Then it got worse, so I decided I'd had enough of this soccer business and packed up our stroller and took the kids to the van...over the DIRT parking lot...that was now sticking in huge globs to the tires of my stroller. Nice. Got the kids in the van, and went back to see Kiersten, who was desperately looking for me as the game had ended and everyone else was walking away. Poor girl. I'll definitely have to work on this soccer mom thing if any of my kids decide that's their sport of choice. Sigh. Can't I just force them all to play softball? Then grandma can coach them like she coached me for almost 8 years and I can catch for them like I did for my little brother (although he left bruises on my hand, so maybe they don't need to be that good?). And that is the saga of how I should not be a soccer mom. The end.

I did have this BEE-Utiful view while I watched though!