***

Outside My Window ...
it's pouring and thundering and completely washing away all my plans for planting the vegetable garden today. It's was a hot, humid weekend--the kind of weather that makes Karoline's hair pull up into utterly adorable ringlets. Ringlets aside, I'm not so sure I love the return of sticky Washington, D.C. summer.

***

I am listening to...
the rhythm of the pouring rain. (And now I've given us all an earworm:-)
***

To Live the Liturgy...
Today is all about our novena to St. Philip Neri as we await Colleen's baby news and the addition to the Louisiana band of brothers . Unless I missed some news while I was away, my friend Marilyn will welcome a little girl today, too.

We'll celebrate Pentecost in a church on the road.
***
To Fit and Happy...
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I heard this song on the radio while driving Patrick soccer last week. I'm pretty sure my husband wrote it;-). Sounds just like him.
(I fixed the link--Skip the video)

***

I am thankful for...
ice cold waters bottles, sunscreen, the kind lady who lent me her umbrella to shade Sarah Anne, strollers that can be heaped with all sorts of stuff, a gallon bag of fruit salad, cotton t-shirts, bug spray, and
my Ergo.
I am ever so grateful for my Ergo.

***

From the kitchen ...
Michael's home this week. He is spending the summer in Salt Lake City, training with Salt Lake's professional soccer team, but he came back to coach last weekend and this weekend, as Paddy's team advances to the Sate Cup Final four. So, this week will be all about feeding hungry athletes. Despite the rain, someone will have to make a grocery run today. For breakfast, I'm thinking baked oatmeal.

***

I am wearing ...
pajamas and a pony tail. It's really, really early. And I'm so tired following our marathon tournament weekend that I'm going to try to stay in my pajamas all day..

***

I am creating ...
lists.
Lists of what to pack for the people going with us this weekend.
Lists for the people left at home.
Lists of Mass times and locations in Williamsburg.
Lists of what to see at Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg.
Lists of cooler food.
Lists of directions to fields and hotels and restaurants.
Lots and lots of lists.

***
On my iPod...
Amos Fortune, Free Man
we listened to it to and from games last weekend. Most of what I've downloaded at Audible.com is too advanced for my little ones. For the coming weekend, I think I'm going to hit storynory.com for Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling. If you have good source for books on audio for kids--especially stories that span the ages well, please leave a link in the comments.
***
Towards a real education ...
I have a short three days this week between tournaments. When I awakened Paddy yesterday, I told him that all he had to do was push through one more game (he'd already played four in the previous two days) and he had a trophy waiting for him. He moaned, rolled over, and mumbled that he already had a room full of trophies; he just wanted to sleep. He finally rallied (and he did collect the championship) and I promised him he could sleep for the next three days. Truth is, everyone is exhausted and I need these days to collect myself and take this show on the road.
***
I am thinking...
That it is utterly adorable that Katie and Karoline have decided to build fairy houses at every athletic complex we visit, sometimes leaving two or three houses near the fields. Five new homes were added to the fairy real estate collection last weekend.

***

Sarah Anne this week...
Despite much shade and sunscreen, Sarah Annie got a little sun this weekend. Her skin no longer has that luminous porcelain look. She's still a little cherub, but she's definitely lost the angelic newborn glow.

***

I am reading ...
maps, directions, stats and standings, fast food menus, and not much else

***

I am hoping and praying ...
for Elizabeth deHority
and
Jessica Hulcy

***

On Keeping Home ...
Despite the fact that I was ready to fall over yesterday afternoon I was so hot oand tired, I rallied to make the house presentable before Michael's girlfriend dropped by last night. I never would have pushed like that had it not been for the threat promise of company. I am glad I did. There's still much work to be done, however.For today, we still have to dig out of pockets of weekend dump-and-run. The van needs a total overhaul. It smells like a locker room, among other things. There's laundry to happen so we can begin to pack. The trick right now, isn't so much keeping home, but thinking ahead enough to know what parts of home to take in order to make this trip successful all the way around.
***
A few of my favorite things ...
Little boys who cheer for big boys and care just as much about their games as their own games.
Little boys who grow up to be big boys and coach their "little" brother's teams
A not so little boy who suddenly is mature enough to admit that his big brother is the best coach he's ever had.

***

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week:
I'm in super organizing mode for the next three days. The veggies will be planted tomorrow. Hopefully, the roses will arrive before I have to leave so that I can plant those, too. Michael and I will head out with a van full on Friday morning, very early. We're going to Williamsburg for a soccer weekend, bookended with historical field trips.

***

Picture thoughts

Sights from soccering.
Patrick's "highlight reel" to follow as soon as I hobnob with my friend Roger.

Be sure to visit Peggy for links to more daybooks.

I've got a big long post in my head about baby slings and stolen snuggles and moving on to a new season in life. Big, long post. But, I'm posting from the archives instead, because we have far away tournaments this weekend and next, the pool is opening, baseballs playoffs are looming large, recitals are drawing near, and my life is not my own. My writing is not my own. It's the bubbling up of what's happening here and what's happening here is not conducive to contemplative musings about middle age. What's happening here is sports.

Instead, I'll leave you with a piece from a couple of years ago. The baby in the pictures is Karoline. She's a big girl now--two years old--and she's been hearing about fairies all year. It will come as no surprise then that when I told her we were taking the ferry across the river to soccer this weekend, her eyes lit up.

"Katie, we're going to fly across the river on a fairy!"

Katie, who made the same mistake a couple of years ago, is much older and wiser now. She set Karoline straight. Still, wouldn't it be fun to fly across the river on a fairy? And wouldn't that be bonus points for integrating curriculum with real life?

Why do we do this, again?

My husband looked up from the computer Thursday and said, "I sent you a love note."
Interested(if only because this is a pretty rare occurrence), I made my way to the inbox. There, for my organizing convenience, was this weekend's tournament schedule, all laid out and mapquested. How to get from home to Stephen's games, to Paddy's games and back to Stephen's games and then back to Paddy's games. This was a lovely thought.
Pssst: he forgot ballet rehearsal, basketball practices, meals times and locations, and the fact that it's not going to be warmer the fifty degrees with a wind chill in the low forties.
And so it begins. Another autumn soccer weekend. Somebody tell me again why we do this?

We do this because it's a part of our family culture. Ah, but is that the chicken or the egg? Would it be a part of our family culture if we hadn't made a conscious decision to do it in the first place? Probably. Before my children were playing sports, they were sitting in the stands at the local university watching sports. My husband was working in the athletic department. Those babies were nursed at every conceivable sporting venue. It was quite natural for them to grow up wanting to play.

I remember the day of Michael's first soccer game. We lived about a mile from my mother's house back then and she stopped by in the morning with some very sad news. It was break-a-mother's-heart news and my mom's heart was definitely breaking. Michael came down the stairs in his uniform and with all the earnestness of a six-year-old who'd waited his whole life for this day, said, "Grandma, just look at me. I'm dressed to play soccer on a real team. Doesn't that just make you want to smile?" And she did. His buoyant enthusiasm--his unabashed joy of the game--brought us a lot of smiles over the next twelve years.

And it was infectious. Balls multiplied in our house like mushrooms in the rain. Our afternoons filled with training sessions. Our weekends were--and still are-- given to matches all over Virginia, DC, and Maryland. And then there are the tournaments. Those are the family trips our children will remember, for the most part. There have been tournaments in Virginia Beach in the pouring rain, while we waited out a hurricane. Tournaments in Pennsylvania in October when cotton and linen and plenty of water were are greatest necessities as the temperatures soared into the nineties. Tournaments in Richmond in March when it was snowing sideways.

My strollers are always purchased with an eye towards whether they can be maneuvered on an old farm-turned-temporary-field at the end of November. My babies all say "ball" as one of their first five words. They learn to play contentedly on the sidelines and I learn how to keep them entertained. I know how to nurse a baby when it's freezing outside and the last thing in the world I want to do is lift my shirt. I know how to pace the sidelines at the end of a nailbiter with a wee one in a sling. I even know how to quickly pack four little kids into a double stroller and leave the sidelines at the request of a referee.

That said. I am not a yeller. I don't call out anything from the sidelines. I know how distracting that is for the kids on the field. Whether they are screaming good things or bad things, I don't think parents should yell from the stands. And I don't do it--it's just not in me. But I know people who do;-). Sidelines are a great place to study human nature. Enough said there.

At the beginning of every season, we scope out the parks and the playgrounds. They set "monkey bar" goals: "I'll get across the Crestview monkey bars by the end of the season." We do nature study along the Occoquan and at Burke Lake Park and at Algonkian Regional park. We collect seashells in Virginia Beach between State Cup matches and we pray that we get to go to Maine for the Regional tournament. We know where the Catholic churches are in every place we frequent and we know the Mass times at those churches in cities other than ours. (Psst, God bless the Benedictines in Richmond who hosted us on their fields and in their church.)We also scope out the porta-potties. I've been known to delay potty training so that it does not coincide with games at fields with bad porta potties. I'm just saying.

It is in supporting my children in athletic endeavors that my organizational abilities are stretched and strengthened. Honestly, I don't have many weekends at home to get my act together. Not only that, I'd better have said act together while I'm on the road. Last Friday night, my mother called. While I tried to have a coherent conversation with her, I instructed Christian and Stephen on vegetable prep for crockpot stew. I knew it would be very cold and I knew that when I got home Saturday, I wouldn't want to cook. While they chopped vegetables, Patrick and Mary Beth laid out clothing and checked equipment, she for the girls and he for the boys. Mary Beth handled leotards and tights and ballet shoes, water bottles and snacks and something to to entertain Katie when she wasn't dancing. Then she made sure the baby had layers and layers of clothing to keep her warm at soccer. Patrick built "kits" from the inside out: under armor, shirts, shorts, gloves, hats, sweatpants, sweatshirts, ski jackets, charcoal activated handwarmers, extra dollars tucked inside the coats with the promise of hot chocolate.

I stashed some CDs, made sure I had cash for the ferry, packed the water-resistant "neat sheet" and the big blankets, the stroller, and the folding chairs. One more check of the weather. Ack. Throw in an umbrella. The notes my husband made go in page protectors in a tournament binder. With them, there is a printout with directions to reputable food places and a printout of Mass times within a reasonable distance of the venue. I've learned that I can't just choose a time and place ahead of time because Sunday's games are always contingent on Saturday's results and often on Sunday morning's results, too. In the notebook as well is a copy of medical release forms (not sure why I do this) and a list of my doctors and insurance information (I know exactly why I do this--I've had to call our pediatrician from a distant location more than once, only to discover that she was at the same tournament on the sideline with her cell phone.) Also in the notebook is a roster for each team which includes cell phone numbers of every parent.

So, now we're all organized. Tell me again why we do this? My children don't go to school. We don't do co-ops or outside classes. There's no 4H or scouting. Frankly, sports and ballet are all we do, because that's all I can manage. The time and money committed on a daily basis truly bring me to my brink. So why? What's the point. The short answer is because my husband thinks it's important. Some days, I just take that and run with it. The long answer is that I agree with him, though I have to think about much longer and harder than he does. He sees the enormous role that sports can play to help prepare a child for the real world. So do I.

With sports, my husband brings his sons into his real life grownup world in an appropriate way. He shows them the way men behave and helps them navigate the twists and turns of long-term commitment to an ideal. Frequently, his father is also along. Granddad has probably driven to as many practices as Mike has and he's definitely seen more games, since Mike frequently travels over the weekends. The boys and their dad have a culture of their own and it's a good thing. One recent Saturday, Mike and the boys and Granddad all went to watch Christian play basketball on the same court where Mike played in high school. The older men, I'm sure, were taken back in time to their own memories. And then, they all went out to the track. They ran footraces (well, Granddad refrained but everyone else ran) and they kicked field goals. They competed heartily and bonded in a way that I am sure I will never quite understand and they had a grand time. Someone asked me once how to interest her son in sports. I couldn't answer her adequately. For us, it really is a dad thing. Mom knows the game, supports them in every way possible from nutrition to transportation to miles and miles of videotaped matches to every ridiculous fundraising scheme to countless weekends spent on sidelines when I could have been home cleaning my house or planning lessons. But it's Dad who truly inspires the love of the game.

(In a couple of weeks, we'll talk more about dance and we'll see how that works in very much the same way for the girls.)

My children learn what it is to discover their gifts and then to discover that's only half the story: they have to work very hard, with great discipline, to develop those gifts. They also discover what is not their gift and how to move on. Or they learn that though they all have the same family and the same resources, they were created differently and what is good for one of them isn't necessarily the right thing for another. They hold each other accountable and they have zero tolerance for laziness amongst each other. Woe to the child who squanders his God-given ability. The child who wasn't as abundantly blessed but works ten times as hard will be relentless until the gifted child starts to live up to his promise.

They learn both how to lead and how to follow. They learn the value of the dollar. They know what training costs, what shoes cost (and how to make sure Grandpa stays abreast of the latest in athletic shoes). As they get older, they learn to demand (politely) that their coaches deliver the services for which they are paid. On occasion, they've also learned to be the player-coach when a coach has been negligent.

As soon as they are old enough, they get certified to referee. They teach the game. They volunteer to coach. And then they also earn money to offset the cost of playing. Even Mary Beth will referee soccer. Her money will go towards pointe shoes, no doubt. Speaking of referees, my children learn how to handle "unfair." When the ref blows a call--either accidentally or on purpose--and the whole game goes awry, it's quite a lesson in a reality: life is not "fair." It's not. And we all can benefit from lessons in "unfair" because someday it's likely that something a lot more important than the tournament title decision will be "unfair."

Of course my children also learn about their peers. They learn from the boys who are dedicated and from those who break the rules and squander opportunity. They learn a great deal about human nature and about both cooperation and competition. They know all about friends who are still friends after you miss the penalty kick and lose the tournament and "friends" who are pleased to see you humiliated and defeated. That's good. They will meet those friends again in the real world, no matter what God calls them to do.

Even with all my organization, they also are held accountable for their own personal responsibility stuff. We don't let a child play or take lessons until he or she is old enough to keep track of the uniform or necessary equipment. I admit that this so intimidated one child last year that he never put his team socks in the hamper (all season) for fear that they would get lost in the shuffle and he wouldn't be allowed to play. On the way to a game a few weeks ago, we were running late due to a flat tire. My husband called back to Stephen, "Be sure you're all ready. Go ahead and put your shin guards on."

"Oh no," came a plaintive wail, "Paddy took my shin guards out of my bag again."

"No problem, " quickly came the sigh of relief from the same child, "I've learned to pack an extra pair in this hiding place in my bag. He always takes my shin guards. I knew this was going to happen some day." Survival skills for eight-year-olds. I'm sure he lost sleep thinking up that one.

Siblings who aren't playing are not always the most cheerful companions. I pulled a sleeping teenager out of bed in the cold and dark yesterday morning. He wasn't impressed by my promise of bagel in the van as we crossed the Potomac River on ferry. I repeated the "You Have Choice" speech several times in the hour or more we traveled. It goes something like this: You don't have a choice about whether or not come spend the day with us and support your brothers. You don't have a choice about what time to get up or how we're going to get there or even what you are going to listen to in the van on the way. But you have a choice over whether this will be a miserable day for you or a cheerful one. You can choose to see the beauty in the sunrise, to see how much fun Katie thinks the ferry is, to see how well Stephen is playing, to be happy to take the little kids to see the horse on the field next door. Or you can mope. Your choice. Sure would be a shame to spend the whole day moping. If you choose to mope, though, please go to the back of the van and don't let me see you." He muttered something about needing to build a bridge as we made our way over on the ferry. By the time we went home--twelve hours later--he still thought they should build a bridge but maybe a little further down the river. This ferry was pretty cool after all.

There are days when I whine myself and I point out to my husband how much simpler my our life would be without intense sports and ballet. And he asks, with all sincerity, what I would do on the weekends. Truth is, I'd probably do laundry and plan lessons and cook ahead. But I always say I'd take a drive out to the country on a perfect autumn day and just enjoy being together. Or go to the beach. Or head for some historic location. Honestly, we do do that on the weekends. We just play soccer or basketball while we're there. Because that's what the Foss family does.