So You Wanna Play...

So last night ended with what felt like a "parent failure".  And truly it was.  I could have avoided the whole disappointment by simply signing my 5 year old up for softball when she came home from kindergarten, paper in hand yelling, "OH yeah Baby!!  I can play softball at 5!  Sign ME UP!!!" 

So the simple solution was to sign her up.  Which I planned to do.  I mean I am a rec. director (in the learning stages). I advertise this program. I know how and where to sign up.  And yet in the past few weeks my focus was on getting my son onto the already closed Lacrosse team.  I had struggled with the thought of how to manage lacrosse practices and games and work and also the needs of my daughters as a single mom. So, like every good procrastinator who is overwhelmed by the reality of her situation I ignored it.  What made all the difference was my son, gently saying, " I understand if it is too much for us to do."  With his gracious way he relieved me of responsibility of a crazed spring of begging for rides, dinner out of a lunchbox, and navigating my way to many a field around the state.  And in that same moment, it was exactly what I wanted to do for him.  And so began the emails and phone calls and reaching out to anyone in the lacrosse "know" to get my son on a team.  I was accustomed to t-ball and baseball where they run with the "more kids?  more teams!"  kind of attitude. Finding a group closed was a bit of a shocker for me!  But in the end, the lacrosse coaches want kids playing. The sport is growing and they are trying to keep up.  They gave us the option of playing up a level.  They assured us that some other kids his age had moved up and that their are kids at every level who have never played before.  Lacrosse will now engage 4 days of every week this spring.  He is thrilled I am excited and broke.

And now we return to softball...a three day commitment which again has practices overlapping with my work schedule and also with the lacrosse schedule.  The phrase, "I am one Mama!" rings through my head, and hey, often spills from my lips to these kids.  Last night I finally made the call.  "Hi, I would like to get my 5 year old daughter on a softball team, and of course I would like this particular team because I will need to ride share. I am sure you will have no problem meeting my meager demands even though I have missed the usual signup dates due to previously schedule recreational commitments ( I think it was... OMG I am exhausted after 5 nights out of the house and we have to go home rather then register and since I am in the business it should be no trouble, so lets go home and eat dinner together and play a board game instead).

Would you believe (in my best Haitian accent for those of you who know my dad) softball was full!!??  My heart dropped.  Failure.  I could have signed her up at anytime, but as always I felt I had all the time in the world.  I told her the news.  Disappointment spilled across her face.  She began to cry.  "But Mommy, I have been waiting.  And don't you remember how I told you that I am a little nervous but I talk to myself about that and I know I will be ok and that the coaches will help me?"  I sank in my seat and had no way to redeem myself.  I offered T-ball.  No go.  I said, "I am sorry.  Mommy messed up."  She ached for her dream and I ached for my girl. 

So I have no sweet little spin to put on this screw up.  Yes, I sent out a text in the right direction and someone rescued me from myself.  I am certainly not here to advocate procrastinating and pulling strings. I am here simply telling a story of one Mom who is trying hard and who still has some work yet to do...

I have some friends to thank and some brownies to bake...and in three weeks when I am pulling my hair out trying to get to all of these games and practices, you have my permission to virtually whack me!

Coffee, a backache, and the school bus en route...

Bienvenue!

This blog is here for me to take a chance.  To put away some of the many journals I find throughout my house, car, office (anywhere I might be when struck by the urge) and tell my stories to you.  I am looking to be brave!  I am searching for the truth in what I am meant to be or do in this world, and I am hoping that you might smile sometimes when you read...especially when you most need it. 

A few things about me. I love, love, love the ellipses ( you know the little dot, dot, dot thing?)  I use it all the time, so get ready. I think it leaves a thought hanging so that the reader can enjoy the moment, but also opens it up for new thoughts; yours or mine.  Which brings me to another I love!  I love the word "moment".  I think that as I seek my own truths, I find them quite often in the smallest of times, rather then a in the grand events.  I find what I need in the moments.  Often I miss them when they are happening, and you can read about me puting  the invisible jet in reverse in hopes of recapturing that time.  Sometimes it works, sometimes....not so much.

So, thank you for joining me.  Oh, as for the title...little to do with what is written, but sets the stage for me being here this morning.

Cat and Fish Games

 It has happened before to a less fortunate fish.  Fifi's brush with mortality was announced by an unsettling crash followed by a greater crash and several aftershocks.  After which Kylie and I bolted with an OH NO!  We raced sock footed across the wood floors and up the uncarpeted stairs in a bit of a car out of control type plunge.  We "Krammered" into her room to find the cat no where and poor, poor Fifi flopping helplessly on the painted blue floor, which of course was quite striking against her red scaly body.  Her floating angel like fins were tight to her fishy form.  I dropped my cell phone with an, " OH I need to rescue the fish!" and scooped up the ever so grateful Fifi.  I know she was..how could she not be.  There was a bit of water left in the bowl around her crushed neon colored castle.  I scooped up the broken pieces while my 5 year old daughter calmly asked if Fifi (once named Rudolph because she arrived Christmas Eve via the real and true Santa-I kid you not!) would be OK.  I said, "Yes, Luv, I think she will make it."  I brought her, bowl and all to the bathroom and added some water.  I made sure it was a bit warm thinking that Fifi could use a bit of a Calgon moment after such an ordeal.

Well, Fifi made it.  Whew.  The cat upon being spoken to quite firmly admitted that the accident was his fault, but that he was merely after a sip of water.  Typical.

I began to wonder if I would fair as well as Fifi. If the fishbowl of my world were suddenly and mysteriously tipped over leaving me to spill out of my oxygen and lie helplessly on an unfamiliar, and maybe not even my best color match surface without the ability to help myself,   how long would I continue to flap about like Fifi?  Would I give in to the inevitable doom or would my own desire and determination carry me until a hand of kindness cradled me back into my world...leaving me in warmth to wash away the horror.

And then it occurred to me...this has happened to me so many times!  And yes, I have kept up the flapping until one of the many kind hands scooped me up.  You know who you are....you are all here and hopefully taking a moment to read and realize what you have done for this one little fish whose bowl was tipped.  Please don't go far, the cat is always closer than you think!

A Picture of A Moment

I don't take enough pictures. I sometimes stop and stare at these children I bustle through life forgetting to enjoy.  I get them to school and get them home and get them fed and get them to bed so that they can get up again.  I get them to swim or baseball or T-ball.  Sometimes they get bathed.  I get them the occasional playdate. I push them to clean their rooms and put away their clothes.  I expect them to help in our house.  I want them to be responsible and capable when they are adults. (Oh and I just plain want the help!)  But when is our playdate?  When do we simply giggle and smile and play...

At times I freeze watching them and without a camera try to make my mind take a permanent photo.  Please let me remember this time for always I beg of my brain. And why not?  With the capacity of the human brain, why can't I have a picture file or a videofile?  Why are the stories I recall only 1 millionth of all that has been?  Is it because I would need to also equally remember the hurt, the sadness, the disappointments of a day?  Or worse the times I have failed or disappointed myself?  We rarely take photos of that...we want the feeling to leave.

Today my daughter did her hair.  Most days she quickly runs a brush  through her short, thin, off blond hair and lets it fall where it may.  But not today.  Today she had a new headband given to her by a friend of mine.  She placed it in her hair pulling the front piece out to hang down her cheek (entirely defeating the purpose of a headband, thus making it a true adornment).  She explained that she like it that way so that she could flip that piece out of her face from time to time with a head toss.  The head toss...you know the one often done by models and by cheerleaders in those movies where the geeks take over in the end finding their true place above the jocks and bimbos.

Well she performed her deliberate, yet subtle head toss, while I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cut up apple slices to cover with cinnamon and sugar for lunches.  I was feeling like a great mom since I usually just toss the whole apple in the bag.  And she said, "Do you like it Mom?"  I nodded yes, perhaps I smiled.  I hope I did.  And I continued to make my super mom apples!!!  But in that moment I missed it.  I missed the moment where I should have taken her beautiful little face in my hands and told her just that. "You, my sweet, are stunning!"  How many seconds would that have taken?  Fewer than cutting up apples I bet.

So later when I see her I will.  I will grab her and tell her she is a true beauty.  She will smile a big bight smile and be warmed all the way through the way I was when my mom gave me that moment, that picture.  The one I keep imprinted in my brain.

I hope I am not too late to leave her a brain picture, and I hope I have not left myself with this one.