Not only am I a soccer mom, I am the Team Mom. Now before you judge, thinking that I run around in a minivan all day, please do not. I run around in a truck all day; my husband drives the minivan. I always made fun of the minivan until my friend Dana told me not to be a hater; minivans rock. When H was born we became believers. Even the dog thinks that the minivan has super positive qualities. He likes simply stepping up into the car instead of making a running jump (he’s getting older, poor guy). I also made fun of the way that these soccer moms have coffee together and shop together and get their nails done together. I am not much of a joiner. My exercise consists of a morning run with my four legged child as a partner since he doesn’t talk or yoga by DVD, and I have never played team sports. I do think that they are important, though. “No man is an island” and all that. So when the opportunity to have the girl child involved in some team sports, I was in.
Some of the other moms at H’s school wanted to join a soccer league, and we thought that it would be a good way to get the girl child to exert some energy on a Saturday morning and learn to play well with others, as she struggles with that. What I didn’t think about was that I would have to get up early, cook breakfast early, get two children dressed early, and get us all out of the house before 9:30 (thank God we didn’t sign up for the 9 am games!). I also, innocently enough, offered to be “team mom”. What I didn’t realize was that I would be in charge of ensuring that everyone knew about any changes, any postponements, any announcements, any anything.
The first game, I did all of the above, threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, popped a baseball hat on my head, and off we went to our first soccer game. I was in for quite the awakening. Not one mom had a baseball hat on her head, and forget about any of them walking around without make-up. Shit! This meant that I had to shower before each game? Cleanliness is something that I have never considered to be a virtue. In fact, I subscribe to one of my sister’s thoughts as to cleanliness being overrated rather than a virtue.
These moms were also very well prepared for their children’s matches. While I had a big bottle of water in the boy child’s stroller and the camera as an afterthought, these parents were equipped with camping chairs, sports drinks by the case, blankets, cameras, video cameras, and jackets with colors corresponding to their kids’ team shirts all organized neatly into a wagon. I kept wondering what time these chicks woke up on Saturday. I felt like I was at a college soccer game, not one for four year olds.
Well, I quickly became one of those parents. I shot about a hundred photos (not all of my kid, mind you), I jumped and clapped and cheered like I was at a pro-football game, and told the four year old that she was awesome, even though she was more interested in picking dandelions than actually kicking the ball. I gave her a pep talk before the second half, and made mental notes~all I had was a water and a camera~ about what I was supposed to bring to the next game, and planning what I will do for snacks. Even the snacks are a one-upmanship. I'm waiting for someone to break out the hibachi at some point (what ever happened to tossing out some juice boxes and rice crsipy treats?). I'll probably make something homemade, more for budget's sake than anything, right?
What in theory was to be a Saturday morning diversion became an epic adventure in keeping up with the Joneses. I still don’t have coffee with the moms; I still wear my baseball cap to the games without showering; I refuse to haul a bunch of stuff to the field in a wagon; however, I am into the game when we get there, taking lots and lots of pictures and posting them to Kodak for the other parents to see. My question, though is, "How did I get sucked into this? When did I become 'one of those parents?'"
