Silver Linings, Pollyanna & Ice Skating

I try to enjoy the moment, really be in it and soak it up.  I like to be happy.  I like to laugh.  I like to dance.  I choose half-full, rose-colored everything and silver linings.  These are all very true, very real things about me.  

But there are other very true, very real things about me.  Like the fact that it can all be overwhelming. All the managing activities and kids and money and no money and a marriage and life and groceries and filling out that form and figuring out that puzzle and making all the right decisions and fixing all the wrong decisions and learning and living and loving and and communicating and worrying and Ahhhhhhhhh!

Sometimes I feel like I'm running on empty.
And sometimes like in the above picture I really am.

Sometimes my whole live-in-the-moment-hippie-wannabe-let's-just-dance-why-can't-we-all-get-along-and-love-each-other-we-need-to-laugh-and-dance-more self doesn't feel like a good fit for this busy, (over) scheduled, suburban life.  

And there's that whole where do I fit in with my kids getting older thing happening right now. I feel torn because I am enjoying so many parts of my kids getting older.  Lucy and I binge watched three episodes of Gilmore Girls on Netflix and painted each other's nails on Saturday night, how cool is that?  Peyton and I shared jokes about pop culture and Jesus on our way home from church yesterday, I mean you can't do that with a preschooler. But I if I'm being 100 percent honest, I miss playing a bigger, more cuddly-I-can-make-everything-better mom role.  Sometimes I miss filling up afternoons with painting projects and Disney movies. 
                           
Here's another very true thing about me--I do get overwhelmed, I cry, I get sad and mad and frustrated and anxious and emotional and a tiny bit hopeless, but it doesn't last long.  Because I have these great kids that want to keep moving and playing and learning and laughing and messing up and making up and learning and loving. And a great husband. 

This past Saturday, I was hating youth sports for taking away all my unstructured time and all of our extra money (which is laughable because there is no extra!). Tim came home from picking up one of the kids from practice and said "the pond is still frozen, we need to skate before Peyton's game tonight."  So we went skating.  We found time in between all the crazy schedules and have-to's and structure to play.  

A pick-up game of hockey in the park...it felt so organic and fabulous and unplanned and so unsuburban.  I loved it.

Lucy was the only girl and she was playing/skating hard. So proud.

The fresh air, being active, being together, being unstructured, feeling alive and like a family--it all renewed me.  It filled my glass back up to half-full.

It's hard for some people to understand.  My mother famously asked me why I had to be such a "fucking Pollyanna" years ago.  She's not really a fan of the whole rose-colored way of thinking.

But I like being happy. I like to laugh.  I like to dance (and skate).  I try to enjoy the moment, really be in it and soak it up.    I choose half-full, rose-colored everything and silver linings.  

It is true that I worry that my fucking Pollyanna ways have no place in this rushed, busy, overwhelming life.  But it is also true that I am going to try to find the joy in the unstructured moments and love my family and try to be better at planning and enjoying youth sports and communicating with my husband and not turning into a helicopter mom.  

Feeling the overwhelmed-ness and frustration and confusion and tiny bits of hopelessness, make the silver linings that much more silver.  The whole you have a little darkness to appreciate the light idea, I believe it.  

I have no answers about being happy all the time and figuring out my role with my older kids...no answers at all.  I just know that I will keep trying to enjoy the good moments and really be in them and soak them up.  And dance and skate and love as much as I can.

Confessions of a Reluctant Sports Mom

This weekend was full of football.  There was rainy football, 

sunny football and backyard football.

It was a lot of football.  And I am one conflicted sports mom.  

I grew up with football.  Not just any football, SEC football.  My grandparents had a picture of Jesus and a picture of University of Alabama's head football coach Bear Bryant on their wall.  It was revered.

I was a fan too.  I was the girl that actually watched the game at the bar with the guys in college. I knew rankings and stats and players' bios.  But now, I am a sports mom and I am conflicted.

I hugged him with relief after his first game this year.

Now I watch football and I worry about every player like they are my own son.  Why are people hitting so hard?  Why are we all cheering for people to get hurt? It's too much.  No wait, too much is watching my own sons play football. 

**Disclaimer** The program my son has played with this year has been wonderful.  The coaches and parents have been supportive and encouraging.  This whole conflicted thing is all on me.

But this past weekend, I was caught on tape sounding a little less conflicted which quite frankly makes me more conflicted.  Check out my Reluctant Sports Mom Confession vlog:



(If you are an email subscriber, click here to watch the video http://youtu.be/W75crDm-H3k) 

Are you a sports mom?  A football mom?  How do YOU feel about the game?

My Boys & Baseball

Baseball is part of the fabric of our family.

I love baseball.  But more than that, I love the way my boys love baseball.  It is pure.  It is deep.  It is what baseball movies are all about.  

This is one of our favorite movies around here...The Sandlot.
 


I love the way my boys will sleep with their mitts (and even baseballs), compare baseball cards and play catch all. the. time.

I love that when my oldest son went on his first sleepover at his cousin's house, he called his dad to talk Detroit Tigers' stats when he got a little homesick.

I love how they have always played baseball anywhere--in the backyard, on the beach, in the park, in the kitchen.  They use bats, they use sticks as tees for the little boys' wiffle balls, they use kitchen spoons as bats.

I love how in both homes we've lived in the backyard has become a baseball diamond.  I love how the neighbors know we are the ones with the bases and they play and play and play.

We may not have the nicest grass, but need a batting helmet?
Um, we have plenty of those.

I love how there is no tackling in baseball (as a mom of three boys, this is a big one).

I love watching my oldest teach my youngest how to swing the bat or throw a pitch.

After a tournament, before school, after school, in the summer or in the winter...any time, any season it's about baseball.

I love how our family can watch nine innings of any game (from little league to major league).

I love how they always bring their mitts to minor league games just in case a foul ball comes their way.

Baseball is my boys' life.  Their love may fade as they get older.  They might choose different sports, different interests.  But right now, I love the way they love baseball.   

This Dick's Sporting Goods commercial makes me tear up every time I watch it...they get it.

Baseball Times A Million

It was a weekend full of baseball. And baseball and well, um, more baseball.  It was all baseball games times a million.  

It's a good thing we all kind of like baseball. 

It also happened to be the first really hot weekend of the year.

These two tried to find any patch of shade they could
at one of the very hot baseball games.

There was a little bit of pool time too.

But then it was back to baseball.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not the best sports mom or even a pretty good one.  I screw up practice times, get lost to the games and don't get overly competitive or buy any spirit wear.  But I'm very proud of my boys and everything they do.   

Wade can't wait to get a chance to be on a team someday. 

I enjoy spending time with Lucy during the games and watching her play with Wade. Notice I didn't say I enjoy spending time with Wade.  We're getting there and we have some good moments, but he can still be a little challenging at stuff like this.  He whines, he explores, he climbs, he cries and of course he wants to snuggle when it's 95 degrees.

Famous quote from Sandlot, but it works sometimes when I'm talking about little Wade.

Ask Lucy the score and she won't have any idea.
Ask Lucy where the concession stand is and she can give you very detailed directions.  

When I see my boys of summer all sweaty and happy and proud, it really is the best feeling.  When they make a great play and they puff out their chests while looking over at the crowd to make sure we (their dad) saw it, my heart is full.  Right now I don't get too worked up if they make mistakes or have bad games. I used to feel so badly for them, but now it's just part of the game.  

Oh no you didn't Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan, this quote is ahhhhhmazing and is good for baseball and parenting and well, yeah, everything in life.

To me that's what youth sports is all about, learning to feel proud of those winning moments, not braggy; learning to lose, without it ruining your life; learning to persevere in mega heat and to stay hydrated.  Honestly, all of these lessons are huge and I wish I would've learned them earlier, especially the stay hydrated lesson.

But mostly, I love that my boys love something so much.  They love it so much that after 59,304 hours of baseball this weekend, they went home and played catch in the backyard together. 

This is one our all-time favorite movies (Sandlot) and this scene is my favorite baseball scene in a movie.  

Olympic Parenting

Since the beginning of the opening ceremonies my family has been very into the Olympics.


Watching the Olympics is way different than it used to be. I am watching as a mom now.  A mom of little athletes.

I relate more to those sacrificing, nervous looking, tired, mostly old parents in the stands.  I don't think any of my kids will be Olympians (however I won't limit them and you never know), but I am at the beginning of all the practices, games and all that sports mom stuff.  I've just gotten a taste of what it's all about and I have a whole new respect for not only the athlete, but the parents and the whole family.  


Raising little athletes to be good sports, whether they make it to the Olympics or not, is quite a challenge.  There are a lot of freaky parents, pushy programs/coaches and a whole bunch of too-much-too-soon pressure.  


A lot of the Olympic parents seem to have a handle on all this.  So, I am watching the games and all those amazing athletes, but I am also watching the parents and families.  And taking notes when they are interviewed. 


Check out my latest Mompulse video where I discuss my new Olympic experience.

Check out what Ryan Lochte's mom says about raising an Olympian.

And here's Jordyn Wieber's mom.





Check out more stories on YouTube in the Procter & Gamble series Raising an Olympian- click here.


Click here to subscribe to my MomPulse channel.  Check out other MomPulse videos here.

Youth Sports=Crazy Land

It was cold.   My fingers were too cold to type updates to Tim (who was at home with the other kids) or distract myself by being hilarious on Twitter. But not too cold to cross them and I did.

When he stepped up to bat, my stomach tensed up and like a naive child, I crossed my damn fingers.  Hoping that my 10-year-old kid got a hit at his baseball game.  A hit that he felt good about. A hit that would make other parents believe he was worthy of being on the team.  

He did get a hit.  He did some killer base running and stole home.  I let out the breath that I had been holding and unlaced my fingers.  Until the next at bat, or anytime a ball headed his way in the field.


Youth sports parents are f-ing crazy.  And I'm one of them now.  I've crossed over into f-ing crazy land.


I have yet to reconcile my belief in the benefits of competition, being part of a team, and being active and healthy with my belief in the benefits of having fun, being flexible with time and compassionate to different skill levels.


Peyton used to play in a what I thought was a very relaxed flag football league.  The kids were in first grade.  Some of the parents (especially on a particular team that would "vs. us" as the kids would say) were beyond a little intense.  You know the type, yelling and screaming, veins popping out of their necks.  And that was just a few of the moms, the dads were so much worse.


I stood on the sideline quietly judging with disgust.  "They are insane," I said in my head.  "They are borderline abusive," I judged in my head.  But when Peyton's team scored I was doing a touchdown, rub-it-in-your-face dance, in my head of course.


It is all so confusing to me.  Is this fun?  I want the games to mean something, just not everything.  I want to win, but not at any cost.  We have yet to find a team, in any sport, where either  some parents didn't give a shit or some parents were far too invested, as if their kid's college scholarship depended on the season.


Talk to most people that played sports at the collegiate level and they will tell you they weren't that intense at 10.  They didn't practice every night, have a personal trainer, special diet, etc.  (Note: we don't have this and hope to god we never do until maybe high school.)  Some of the guys that I do know that had a lot of pressure burned out, peeked early, resented the sport or the people that put all the pressure in the first place.


There was a documentary on ESPN a few months ago that offered a cautionary tale...it was about Todd Marinovich and his father Marv.  Spoiler alert, although it's a true story and if you know sports you might know this story, Todd is pushed by his dad to play football. He makes it to the NFL, but ends up being a massive drug addict.  There are so many sad parts of the story.  

I absolutely love ESPN films.  No joke.  First of all I am fascinated with good (and sometimes bad) filmmaking in general.  But secondly, they are really f-ing good.  You don't like sports?  Doesn't matter.  Sports are about life--relationships, overcoming obstacles, beating the odds and sometimes not beating the odds.  And these movies capture all of it, whether it is about boxing or football, hockey or track and field.

Every now and then, when Tim or I are getting a little too intense we ask the Marv question, i.e. "what would Marv do?" And we do the opposite of course.


We joke about Marv, but Tim and I are in serious need of role models right now.  And I just may have found them.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I was mesmerized by the best story in baseball last week--the foul ball Rangers fans.  Heard of them?  


Their three-year-old didn't get the foul ball that was tossed in the stands.  The overly perky couple sitting next to them grabbed the ball, proceeded to take pictures with the ball and laugh and high five.  All while the little three-year-old cried his eyes out.  So what did the young parents do?  Throw a fit? Demand the ball to get their child to stop crying?  Sue the perky couple? the Rangers organization?  Did they go on Access Hollywood and claim their five minutes of fame with tears of how unfair it was?


No.  They appeared on The Today Show the next morning and demonstrated compassion, grace, calmness and thoughtfulness.  They wished the other couple well and hoped people "weren't too hard on them."  They were glad their son didn't get the ball because they turned it into a life lesson--you can't always get what you want.  


Grabbing onto those learning lessons, teaching coping skills as children, better preparing them for adulthood and to be a caring citizen of the world.  That's the parent I want to be.


But it is so damn hard when you just want to stick it to some of the shitty, pushy parents.  When you think you are defending your kid, but it really becomes more about you and your issues.  Not about your opportunity to teach and parent with grace.  Bad news is I have a long way to go.  Good news is I have a big family and maybe by the fourth kid I'll have it down a little better.