What Time is it? SOCCER TIME!!

Yessiree - it's that time of year again. Time for driving and driving and driving - back and forth and forth and back to where? The Soccer Field! So this weekend Sh and I miss out on camping (oh yeah, we're sad about that [sarcasm sarcasm ] - see previous post) and wakeboarding (we truly are sad about that one) because of soccer tryouts. Yep, the high school team has begun already.


It started early in the week with a "training camp" at the school from 5:30-8pm - a fundraiser of sorts, all kids from all sports can attend 4 days of running and drills to prepare all the kids for the various tryouts. (um, they only do soccer drills - are they really fooling anyone here??!!). I'm sorry - it's 105 degrees with a heat index of 112? that's ok, we can still play. Yeah it was a bit hot, but miraculously a breeze blew across the field (which is an artificial surface with some kind of black rubber embedded in the green field to make it softer than typical astroturf, which also makes it hot as heck, not to mention the hundreds of black specs that get in your clothes and your shoes and my car and my house). And they had constant running water which they alternately drink/spray. And she loves it. I love watching the end of the "camp" when they scrimmage. WARNING - UNABASHED BRAGGING AHEAD: She has such a great left foot and a gorgeous cross. I love to see it. I smile at her passes and her quick thinking. She's a good ball stealer, too. She's not big and has a sort of "type B" style out there that makes you think that she "doesn't have much in her locker." HA, she'll school you boy, so beware.


What to do while she practices? Well, fortunately, the school borders a national park, so I have finally gotten off my sorry butt and started really running again. My soccer team will be happy because I have been performing at less-than-par lately. on the 112 degree night I wimped out and did a little retail therapy at the nearby Target (did you know they now make a 1 gallon Margarita maker/smoothie blender that will plug into your car or your boat or you can use it at home? And it has some built-in-something-or-other that keeps the drinks frozen longer?Awesome).


Last night was the first night of official "tryouts." There's some debate over whether it's really tryouts - the head coach pretty much already knows who he's going to have on varsity and the rest of the kids pretty much make JV, although there are some cuts. Tryouts are more serious than camp, of course. You should be there 15 to 30 minutes early, warmed up and ready to go. At 5pm. On a Friday night in DC. Uh-huh. (School is 30 minutes away on a good day and I work downtown about 1 hour away, requiring me to get home, get her loaded up and turn around and go back towards downtown to the school.)


So of course I am late leaving the office and of course I come flying in the house at precisely the time we are supposed to be on the road. But hey, she's nearly 15 and has tried out before and she's been at "camp" all week. So we load up the car quickly and head out to tryouts. We get about 1/3 of the way there, and she exclaims "I FORGOT MY CLEATS." Oh no. Not really. Are you serious? See I always do the verbal, "Got your shin guards? Water? cleats? Sunscreen?" And I always get back a rather exasperated teenage, "Of course mom, I'm not stupid." So of course I neglected to do the verbal checklist. EEK My first reaction, after whipping the car in a 180 turn across an intersection (please let her forget that move when she's learning to drive - what's that Harry Potter charm for wiping clear a memory?), is to be a little mad. But I can't be mad. Because she is so incredibly remorseful. Truly horrified. Not just that she's now obviously going to be late for tryouts. But that I have to turn around. She apologizes 16 million times. She's now getting pathetic and I'm trying not to laugh, so I just keep quiet, which she interprets as extremely mad (the kids don't fear screaming from me - they fear quiet rebuking or silence).


We fly home, fly into the house, careening into the boys (there are extra boys around the house, all getting ready to accompany K and Au on the camping/wakeboarding weekend), grabbing cleats and double checking that we have the required medical forms, fly back out the house without an explanation, fly through green lights (thank you God), and make it to the field at precisely 5pm. Seems the coach got stuck in traffic b/c by some miracle he is not there yet. whew. Oh and tonight I have to make the trek back home during tryouts (which I normally don't do b/c of traffic and time, it just seems pointless) b/c I have some work I really must finish. So once again I am on the road. Which was stupid b/c I didn't have enough time to get the work done before I had to get back in the car and go pick her up. Oh well. She had a great tryout - lots of fun. She jumped in the shower once back home, and I dropped her at a friends' house for a sleepover.


Today we go back to tryouts, and I will stay and run. Tonight they announce Varsity (no she won't be on it. Doesn't even want to be on it - would rather be on JV and play. They have at least 10 seniors on varsity, and the field only holds 11 players, so you figure it out). Tomorrow, for some unknown reason, they find the need to practice on a Sunday. I had hoped they would cancel that (they did last year) and we could head out to the lake for a day of wakeboarding. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping, but, well, who knows.

So we'll be making the trek to school every day for the rest of the month until school starts (oh yes and beyond of course). I'm still trying to remember how to juggle work and kids and being the chauffeur. I've been spoiled all summer with their travels and have gotten into "ultra work mode." I have forgotten how to get 10 hours of work done in 6 hours. Hopefully it will all come back to me! OH, and I must remember that it's that time of year again to load up my trunk - with my soccer gear/cleats/shin guards as fall-back extras, with extra water/gatorade, and with the obligatory boxes of granola bars and crackers - they always come off the field "STARVING."