The Things We Do For Love, or Why Toe-Punching a Soccer Ball is NOT a Good Idea...

Played in a scrimmage against my son's U10 soccer team last night, Parents versus Kids, and had loads of fun. The score was even, and I think the kids learned a lot. It's one thing to tell the kids, "Spread out!" and "Move up!" and "Watch your man!" And it's another thing to SHOW them.

Heh.

Did pretty well, until nearly the end of the game when my knees decided to close shop. "We're done!" they said, and promptly vamoosed, and Auntie went all in a heap to the ground. Fortunately, muscle memory does not fail, and I rolled right up to a sitting position. If my knees had not left the building earlier, I would have come back up to a standing position! Gave the Impossible Son heart failure, though. "Mom! Mom!! Are you okay? Do we need to call 911? Are you dead? Mom?? Mom? MOM!!!"

Because I was laughing so hard, I couldn't talk!

There were a lot of funny moments. Like when The Husbandly One scored a goal and whipped off his shirt to come running down the field, arms in the air with his shirt streaming behind like a flag. One of the kids turned and looked at me and said, "Coach THO is a pretty hairy guy, Auntie!"

I laughed and said, "He's my own personal shag carpet!" and then laughed even harder because... hee... SHAG!!

*is inappropriately amused*

One of the other dads had a handicap. His three year old son wanted to play, too, but he's too small, both in age and in size. So, he scooped his son up and at first tried to play with Wee-Man on his hip. Nope. So he tried a princess carry. Nope, that didn't work, either. He finally just lifted him up to his shoulders, and Wee-Man just hung on for dear life, giggling madly while his dad went galumphing up the field after the ball.

Yes, "galumphing" is a word. I say so.

The Impossible Son threw himself dramatically to the ground at one point, saying, "I'm so TIRED!" and I pulled him up and said, "Hey, how do you think I feel! I'm old!"

One of his team mates danced by and said, "You're not old! Now my mom is nearly 28... that's OLD!! You're not even close to her age!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her I'm 47, and struggled to keep a straight face. One of the other moms on the team, who is five years younger than me, was laughing hysterically, and said, "It must be the lighting out here!"

Well, you know, to a ten year old, anyone over the age of 20 is positively ancient.

And I toe-punched the ball on a goal kick, instead of hitting it with the inside of my foot, as I had intended. The Impertinent Daughter rushed up to me and said, "Mom!! No toe-punching! You're going to hurt yourself!!"

She was right...



Not pretty, is it. It split the side of my toe, too, and yeah, still hurts.

The things we do for love, right?

*goes off to look for more ice*

Go Kick Something.m4v

Spring soccer is starting up for us. Well, technically, it started last Saturday, but things are really starting to roll now! So, I thought I'd share a video I made in the fall of 2009, at the height of the extreme drought Central Texas was going through. Our fields were so very, very dry that the kids were playing in a veritable cloud of dust. Didn't diminish their fun one single bit! The fields are in much better condition now that we have irrigation on most of them, and the grass is getting thick. They still need a lot of work, but they are light years from where they were!

This is a practice scrimmage between my son's U10 team, and another. Enjoy!

Because she liked the sound of the scissors...

What is it about the number four??

Ten years ago, when the Impertinent Daughter was four, she waited until I was busy washing dishes and grabbed the pair of scissors we'd been using for some project or other, and... cut her hair. She chose a chunk on the left side of her face and cut her long, beautiful, waist length hair to her chin. Right there in front. No way of hiding it.

My wild fey little fairy had a large chunk of hair missing.

I don't know who cried harder, me or the Husbandly One. Because... it was a big enough chunk that it couldn't be hidden, or "fixed." She had to have a haircut, and oh, she didn't like it, not one bit, because she enjoyed having her hair braided, and being able to do all kinds of fun things with her hair. We took her to a salon, and she had a cute little chin length pageboy cut that made her look absolutely adorable... but we missed our wild fairy, oh, so much!

Okay, so... cut to last night. The Impossible Son is over his bout with strep and went back to school yesterday, but now I'm fighting it off, and by the time I picked the kids up from school, I was shivering and had a very nasty headache and just wanted to lie down. So I did. Miss Impertinence came in to tell me she was bored, and I remember feeling a little anxious about this because truthfully? A bored Impertinence is NEVER a good thing.

I told her to find something to read, because seriously, we have a house crammed with books that she's barely cracked one fourth of, and she wandered out, shouting something vague over her shoulder, and I sort of dozed off. She came in my room sometime later, but since she didn't say anything to me, I didn't bother opening my eyes. Then THO came home, and I heard some loud talking, and a rather... dumbfounded silence, and then the ominous words, "Does your mother know about this?"

Okay, when my husband, when talking to the kids about me, addresses me as your mother... it's never a good thing.

So, she comes ditty-bopping in and says, "Look, Mum, I cut my own hair!" and turns around so I can see the back of it.

I can quite truthfully say that I completely and intimately understand the term, "shock and awe," now.

Before I lost my battle with the Wall of Fatigue, the back of her short haircut had come down just below the base of her neck. When she turned around to show me her handiwork, it was mostly right at or just above the bottom of her hairline. Where it wasn't skewing madly off at the diagonal. Because she had used a small hand mirror to see the back of her head when she cut it.

Y'all should be proud of me. I'm pretty sure I managed to keep "aghast" out of my expression, though I'm sure the "polite interest" I was aiming for probably looked more like "crazed serial killer." Or "my eyes are about to spontaneously pop out of my head while my eyebrows ascend into my hairline."

"Do you like it?" she asked with that big grin that really means, "please don't kill me or make fun of me."

"Oh, it's... um... um..." I floundered, then finally gave up and said, "Okay, that's gonna have to be fixed." Because there was just no way I was going to be able to adequately describe just how awful it looked.

And when she finally understood what I was saying, she said, "Well, what kind of cut do you think I'll have to get to fix it?"

I said, "Um... okay, think... Emma Watson..."

And I could see panic in her eyes because... she gets mistaken for a boy now with the feminine haircut she had before she'd mangled it, and I knew she was thinking it would only get worse if her hair was that short.

THO drove her into San Marcos after ordering me back to bed (because I'm trying not to come down with strep) to get her hair fixed because... there are no salons open after 5 in our small town. No, seriously, a lot of the businesses here roll up the sidewalks and lock the doors at 5 p.m.

They managed to salvage what she did to her hair and make it cute and girly without going the Emma Watson route. And she's actually taken my advice and today wore a shirt that leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that she is, indeed, a girl. However, I told her that should she continue this trend and decide to cut her own hair when she's 24, she's on her own as I will be officially not responsible for bad haircuts, dubious fashion choices, or shoe fails. They will all be on her ticket!

Now if I could just convince the Impossible Son to get his hair cut...

Because a hand up a chicken is worth... um... ewwwwwww....

I was curled up on the bed with the laptop, and the Husbandly One was lying next to me when the Impertinent Daughter came in for advice about her class schedule for next year. Mainly on her four electives. And among the possibilities we threw out at her, one was "Small Animal Management."

"You're always wanting small animals," the Husbandly One said to her scowl. "Hamsters. Guinea pigs. Elephants."

"I think they mean critters like rabbits, goats, and chickens," I said to keep her from throwing something at him. And... that led into a highly inappropriate discussion about chickens.

At this point, y'all need the backstory. See, back about five years or so ago, we became the unintentional owners of chickens, thanks to our landlord and his wife. The first one we got because they were moving and couldn't take the hen that had wandered up to their house as a chick along with them. Fine. And Super Chick was a totally awesome chicken, going everywhere our kids went and cuddling with the outdoor cats when she wanted to take a rest. She went with us when we moved, and started doing things like going down the playscape slide in our backyard with the kids and stealing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from them. And she laid the prettiest blue-green eggs you ever saw, so I'm guessing she was at least part Auracana.

Then we got two more that our former landlord's wife had acquired and realized she couldn't keep when her husband named them "Lunch" and "Dinner" and started eyeing them hungrily when they were old enough to start laying. Yes, I'm a sucker for hard luck stories. I took them, and we named them "Hedda Hopper" because she was always trying to hop onto our heads for some inexplicable reason. If you didn't panic, she'd happily perch on your head while you walked around, before dropping a seriously huge and nasty poop down your back, usually inside your collar. As you can imagine, we didn't let Hedda hoppa on our headas too much!

The other was named "Kung Fu Chicken" because she'd strut toward us making these... sounds that you only really hear from Bruce Lee before he's about to go all choppity on some bad guy, and you'd think, "Oh, gods, this chicken is going to kill me!" And then she'd either rub against you, or hop up in your lap to snuggle... or chase off the snake that you'd been about to step on.

They laid brown eggs. Don't even ask what they were, because Mrs. Landlord had said they were "Silkies" but when I looked them up, they matched none of the characteristics.

Anyhow, we kept them and happily collected eggs from them, which was wonderful, and exciting, because sometimes, the girls didn't want to lay in their nesting boxes. It was like going on an Easter egg hunt every day!! But eventually, and most unexpectedly... they quit laying.

Now, I will freely admit, we went into this blind, mainly because... we hadn't planned on acquiring chickens. Ever. And suddenly, we had them. I had gone into town (we lived out in the country at the time) to hit the library and look for info and that was when I discovered how woefully inadequate the town library was. I found everything on raising rabbits, goats, calves, taking care of cattle, wound care in steers, sheep, guinea fowl, turkeys, god-damned EMUS, fer gossakes... but nothing on chickens!!

Since I had to get feed anyway, I decided to ask at the feed store, because they were always a good source of information about chickens, since they sold them. And I got this energetic old lady who came out, listened sympathetically to my problem and said in a very strong East Texas accent, "Waaaaal, hon, ah think th' problem yer havin' is that yer hens is Egg Bound. So, what you gotta do is, you gotta grease up yer hand and stick it up your chicken's clo-WACKA!"

Yeah, I know it's spelled "cloacha," but... that ain't how she said it, yo.

I'm a city girl, raised by a country boy and a country girl, and we've had chickens and ducks, though that was when I was pretty small. So, I reacted as any girl raised in my circumstances would.

My jaw dropped and I said, 'You want me to put what WHERE??"

"Yew gotta put yer hand up the hen's clo-WACKA!!" and she proceeded to describe the procedure, which most decidedly squicked me something awful, and I decided then and there it was entirely worth the expense of a vet.

Okay, so cut back to tonight, when we're having our highly inappropriate discussion of chickens. I had just said, "I think they mean critters like rabbits, goats, and chickens."

And THO promptly said, "Yew have to put yer hand... up the chicken's clo-WACKA!" and the Impertinent Daughter started laughing.

So, I said, "Yep, you gotta greeeeease that hand up, and just shove it on up in thar, and then you feeeeeel around and if you feel a leetle bump, and then one BIG bump, that's Egg Bound, and you just squeeze it off. But if all you feel is two little ol' nubs, you ain't got a problem! And I said, yes, I do have a problem, I have my hand up a chicken's butt!"

THO snorted then said, "Wow, Mama, you'd be fisting a chicken!!"

I thought the Impertinent One was going to suffocate, she was laughing so hard. "Stop, stop!" she wheezed at us.

"I cud slick 'er up real good with vaseline, or Crisco, if you prefer," I said, and sent both of them off laughing.

Then THO said, "We could get you a bumper sticker. I Fist Chickens."

"Oh, EWWW!!" said the Impertinent One.

"Chicken Fister?" I said, grimacing.

"AW, STOP! Stopstopstop!!" wailed Miss Impertinent, waving her hands and laughing helplessly.

It got highly inappropriate after that, and we were laughing and hooting and wiping tears off our faces. Somehow, I don't think we're ever going to look at chickens the same way again!

Epic Post of Epicness!!!

SHE GOT A GOAL!!!



*dance of joy, dance of joy, dance of joy*

It was BEAUTIFUL!!! There was a big, blustery cold front blowing in, and our team had the advantage of the wind in the first half. Miss Impertinent saw her chance, lofted the shot up and over the head of the keeper and STRAIGHT INTO THE GOAL!!! It was EPIC!!!

AND I NEARLY MISSED IT!!!

I had Erin's 3 year old son in my lap, my head bent over his as I tried to understand what he was telling me, and suddenly, she grabbed my arm, yanked, and said, "LOOK, JO!!" and I looked up just in time to see it!!

They lost, 2 to 1, because the other team had the advantage of the wind, and we lost our goalie to a band concert at half time, but STILL!! It was AWESOME!!!

The Impertinent Daughter's first words to me when she saw me after the game?

"Mum, you're getting a tattoo!!!"

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!

See Max's Girl Run

Okay, y'all are going to have to put up with some more soccer gushing, but this time will be a little different.

Y'all know the Impertinent One has been playing soccer since she was seven, right? Wanted to start her when she was four or five, but the Husbandly One was convinced she was too tiny and would get hurt. I kept pushing, and finally, he said we could try it out and see how she did.

Why did I want her to play soccer?

Well, see, our Labrador Retriever, Max, was such a ball dog. We'd had him since we were first married, and spent a lot of time throwing tennis balls, Frisbees, kick balls, and any other kind of ball we had around for him, and he'd fetch and bring it back, or knock it around and then knock it to us... he was very playful, and we sort of got into the habit of inventing games to play with him. Then one day, THO found a soccer ball and brought it home, and thus began Max's life as a Soccer Dog.

THO spent a lot of time running around, kicking the ball with Max, and Max would knock it back to him and it was pretty damned funny. And amazing.

Did I mention Max waited five years for us to have a kid? And when we finally did, the first thing he did the day we brought her home was drop a ball in her crib and wait patiently for her to throw it back?

The day she finally did was the happiest day in his life.

Okay, so skip forward to when she was finally upwardly mobile and could run. We still kept a variety of balls around for Max (and for Miss Impertinence, too!). And they played, running around the yard constantly.

The inevitable happened. Max taught the Impertinent Daughter how to play soccer. And he always played in a take-no-prisoners kind of way.

She learned well.

Okay, so, the Impertinent One went to her first soccer practice and took to it like a duck takes to water. She was the smallest kid on her team, and I had my moments of "Oh, maybe THO was right," but then she'd play just the way Max taught her and I'd stop worrying.

Then she had her first game, and THO, who had missed the practices, came to watch. There were several kids on the other team who were like... twice her size, and I could see THO was nervous when she went on the field to play. Then this kid, who was HUGE compared to her, loomed over her as she came running up the field with the ball, actually lifting up his arms like he was going to do a "Hulk, smash!!" kind of thing, and I could see THO was ready to race onto the field to save her...

She looked up at him, smirked, then plowed him to the ground with one shoulder and blitzed right past him like he didn't weigh a thing, passed to one of the other forwards, and bam! it was a goal.

I looked up at THO, trying not to be smug, and he was staring after her with this sort of befuddled, totally besotted look on his face, full of shock and admiration, and he suddenly shouted, "THAT'S MY GIRL!! YOU GO, IMPERTINENCE!!"

And that was that.

Well, somewhere along the way, probably when she was about ten or eleven, she started losing her confidence. Mostly after she started playing under the coach she'd had her first season, whom she really liked. He called her his Trooper, because she was always willing to play, even when she was hurt, and he could count on her to set up the ball for shots on goal. Then... he started not playing her as often. He'd bench her, or put her in and take her out after a few minutes. By the last season she played with him, it was starting to tell on her. She started playing in a very tentative sort of way, and flinching when the ball came at her, or when boys looked like they were going to bump her. The coach moved her to midfield, and by her last season, had moved her to defense. She stayed at midfield and defense for the next two levels she played at, and again when she played for the junior high, though she slowly started getting her confidence back. By the time she was playing for the junior high, she was playing aggressively again.

When she started at the high school, after making the team, the coach told her she would play her at midfield, but mostly, she wanted Impertinence to play forward.

"I can't play forward!" she wailed to me. "I'm not fast enough!! I can't run like that!"

"Yes, you can," I said, because I know her, right?

"No! I'm too chunky, look at my legs, they're too short!!"

"You do a lot better than you think you do," I said firmly. "And it's not just speed, honey. It's knowing where to be and when to be there, and you are very good at that. And you're fast enough when you want to be," I added, thinking, you're pretty damn fast when your brother has something you don't want him to have, and you want it back!

Admittedly, the first game she played as a forward, she looked totally lost, but... she nearly got a goal. By the time they played in the tournament in Hays, she'd figured things out, and was starting to enjoy it.

Last night, she came full circle.

I almost missed her first shot at goal. I was grumbling at my camera, trying to adjust the settings because it wasn't cooperating with me, and the Tall Blonde grabbed my arm and practically physically turned my head for me and I was just in time to see her, right there, zipping between Bastrop players like they weren't even there, and then she was there, the keeper wasn't and BAM that ball was flying into the goal. The keeper made a desperate last second lunge and managed to hit the ball with the tips of her fingers just enough to change the trajectory and the ball hit the pole and flew out.

I couldn't even make a sound!, I just sat there with my hands plastered over my face.

I could just swear that when she went zipping down the field, slipping between those other girls... there was a big goofy black dog running right next to her.

It was like I was seeing her in that first game, that same fierce joy, the determination, the "Ha-ha-ha, this is my game, you're playing on my field, and I'm gonna get that ball!!" that had been missing since she was eleven... and it was so wonderful!!

She's found her speed again, too.

And that's why I spent most of the game with my hands either clutched under my chin or plastered over my face, why I could barely squeak at times, because seeing her like that again was so extremely wonderful, it was almost unbearable.

I think she's going to be just fine now. I really do.

OMG SQUEEEEEE!!!!

OMG, y'all, the Impertinent Daughter had the most EPIC game ever tonight!!!

*flailflailflail*

The coach has been playing her as a forward, which really freaked her out at the beginning of the season, but she's settling into it and OMG, she nearly scored three times tonight, not to mention this totally epic steal/recapture/jockey/resteal/shoot sequence she had... it was... OMG, I was so breathless from yelling that I was squeaking!!!

I finally had to sit down with my hands over my mouth, because, omg, it was like seeing her when she first started playing, so fierce and take no prisoners!!!

Oh, the Lady Lions JV had such an awesome game, and though they lost 1-0, they actually had more shots on goal than their opponent did! And the one goal the Bears got was a complete accident on both their and our part. But STILL!!!

*is thrilled liek whoa*

Oh, yeah, did I mention? The Impertinent One and I have a bet. If she gets a goal, I have to get another tattoo.

Looks like she really, really wants me to get a tattoo!!

I'm gonna be so hoarse tomorrow from all the yelling and squeaking, but, oh, so worth it!!

I'M SO PROUD!! Bet y'all couldn't tell at all, right?