To a mom, the phrase “tidy up the family room” means things like: pick up your toys off the floor, put away the video-game controllers, and put books back in the bookcase.
To Little Brother, the same phrase means: get a big piece of clear package-sealing tape, stick it on the (finished-wood) toy box, and write on it, in silver Sharpie, “Basketball place.” Then put the basketball on the floor in front of this label.
Otherwise known as: You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”
Things I’d like to say to my daughter’s friend, but don’t: “If you’re that interested in the clothespins that you’ve got them hanging from your ears, perhaps you’d like to take the laundry down from the line and fold it neatly.”
Things I’d rather not have to say to my daughter’s other friend, but do, since he’s a neighbor and I’ve picked him up at school once in the past 2 weeks, in the pouring rain, because of a foot injury: “Don’t you have a sore foot? Should you be doing barefoot gymnastics?”
Much as I love basketball, I am relieved that, except for the upcoming (but as yet unscheduled) playoffs, Middle Sister’s season is over for the year.
Watching her basketball game was a near occasion of sin for me today. We’re supposed to avoid those things, right?
No, I wasn’t swearing. I was tempted, but I didn’t. I signed that CYO basketball agreement that said I would keep my language clean and encourage my child to do the same. Swearing wasn’t the problem.
However, the problem was holding my tongue. I did it, but it wasn’t pretty, and I wasn’t proud of the struggle I had to go through to do it. Jesus spoke about the intent being as bad as the sin itself (Matthew 5:28) and if it weren’t for the fact that my daughter was out there on that court playing her heart out, I could have easily gotten up and walked out.
No, I wasn’t yelling at the refs. Plenty of parents were–and most of those were from the other team. At one point I thought that the refs were going to kick out one kid’s dad, who wasn’t satisfied that an intentional foul was called against one of our players who had mugged his daughter, and that she had 2 shots on that technical foul. (What did he want? Should our player have been arrested for assault and battery? The kid is a 7th-grader!)
I spent an awful lot of time during that game trying to keep my mouth shut. OK, I did yell stuff like “Good defense” and “Great job” because that’s what I do when I watch basketball. I am not the coach. I am not the ref. It is not my job to tell the girls what to do, or to call the walks and fouls and back-court passes. But there were a lot of parents sitting on the bleachers today (close enough so I could hear them) who were trying to do the refs’ job.
Let me tell you, those refs don’t get paid enough for what they put up with from the sports parents.
Anyway, I was trying very hard to keep my mouth shut during that game. Because I wanted to shoot back at those parents who were yelling about my daughter who was working hard on defense, covering the player she was assigned to cover. Yeah, sometimes she covered a little too, well, physically. But there was plenty of ugly to go around on both sides. Middle Sister didn’t foul out (she had four, before the 4th quarter) and, like the rest of her team, she never gave up. Those kids fought hard right to the bitter end of this game. They lost by 15 points and the other team’s parents were still busy going on about how our team “needs to learn to play basketball” and was “too physical.” But the Mama Bear in me was struggling with whether to open my mouth and tell those other parents to stop dissing my child and her teammates, or whether to keep it charitable since I had just been to church.
I was outwardly charitable, anyway. But that was a really hollow victory. And I’m still really upset about this whole thing.
CYO basketball this week has been fairly ugly. After Thursday night’s game, as Middle Sister and I walked through the parking lot to our car, a girl from the other team mouthed “You suck” at her through her car window. Nice. Did I mention that this is a CYO league? And then today.
Middle Sister has a bad taste in her mouth after all this; she claims that this is her last season of basketball. And while I think that she’ll do well in track next year, it’s a shame that she’s leaving the sport on bad terms.
It’s only a game. Why do people have to make so much of it? Why can’t they just let the kids play, and learn, and listen to the coaches and refs? These are 7th- and 8th-graders–this is not March Madness. Get a grip, basketball parents!
…from the laundry room:
“Little Brother, were you chewing on your sweater?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do that?”
“Why?”
“If you want to chew something, get food!”
“Sorry. It was almost dinnertime…”
Every Thursday afternoon I volunteer in the school library. I help out with the first grade, then the kindergarten, and then I do some other library tasks such as entering new books into the computer catalog, straightening books on the shelves, or whatever the librarian needs done. I enjoy it, and I like seeing the kids.
Yesterday the librarian needed to speak to another teacher between the first-grade class and the kindergarten class. So I greeted the incoming kindergartners, got them settled down in the story area, and we waited for the librarian to return.
While we waited, the kids asked lots of questions, because after all, that’s what little kids do best.
“Mrs. (mumbled, mangled version of my last name), do you know Little Brother?”
“Yes,” I smiled. I was kind of amazed that they knew Little Brother’s last name and that they’d made the connection.
“Are you his grandmother?”
Way to make me feel old, kid!
Overheard in my dining room:
“Big Brother, get Little Brother a fork, please.”
“No! Get me TWO forks!”
“You don’t even eat with ONE fork. What do you think you’re going to do with TWO?”
The same child who doesn’t think that a long-term project constitutes “homework” casually mentioned to me today:
“I’ve got to start thinking of April Fool’s Day pranks. I like to plan ahead.”
Every day, Middle Sister comes home from school and I ask about homework. Usually she has some; not too much. She gets it done and packs it up. So, I think, it’s all good.
Today she was hunting for poster paper, an old magazine, and some glue for a “project” she had to do for one class. It was a kind of scavenger hunt–she had to cut out representations of certain terms. I told her where to find the items she needed, and she headed up to her room to turn on some music and get to work.
Three hours later, she finished her “project.” Then she complained that it had taken her three hours.
“Um, how long have you known about this assignment?” I wondered. “Did your teacher just assign this today?”
“No, she told us about it two weeks ago,” she answered.
“But every day I ask you about homework, and some days you tell me you don’t have any. You could have been working on this.”
“This wasn’t homework. This was a project!”
So there we were, enjoying our lunch in Chick-Fil-A, when I noticed that Little Brother’s face and shirt were liberally adorned with barbecue sauce. “Little Brother,” I scolded, “stop wiping your hands on your shirt! Use a napkin!”
Middle Sister chided me, “But the shirt is reusable!”
I am currently engaged in a battle of wills with Little Brother, who thinks that a blue-and-green tie-dye t-shirt matches perfectly with camo-print shorts.
If we were staying home today I wouldn’t care, but I have to take him out in public in ten minutes.