Bring your checkbook

It's tennis time which means that I'm going to have lots and lots of stories about how incredibly ridiculous a simple sport becomes in the hands of "professionals."

I am being bombarded already with flyers telling me how much I will owe for sweat suits, uniforms (they get a new one EVERY YEAR), balls, spirit wear, food, booster dues and sponsorship monies. Economic hard times? Forget about it. Bring your checkbook to the meeting, that's what they have in big bold letters at the top of the flyers.

And again with the fake birthdays. I cannot take the fake birthdays anymore!!! I wrote about this last year but I think I deleted it because I didn't want anyone from her team to find it and read it...but the coach assigns every girl a fake birthday if her birthday doesn't fall during the tennis season so that no one feels left out. Then the parents are asked to bake up treats for the occasion and then they all sing happy birthday even if their birthdays are in August. I honestly have never seen anything as silly as this in all my life. I just took a quick scan of the fake birthdays (all scheduled out on a calendar!) and every single girl has a fake birthday assigned to her except MY DAUGHTER who does have a birthday that falls within the tennis season.

It makes me want to scream. This is what is wrong with kids these days. We have to make everything even stevens even if your kid sucks and my kid is spectacular--they will both get an award so no one goes home sad. Boo hoo hoo. As a another example (not tennis related but along the same lines), for senior superlatives this year they have things like BEST SMILE, BEST PERSONALITY, DAZED AND CONFUSED, and MOST ATHLETIC but do you think they have anything that says SMARTEST? Nope. We do not want to celebrate academic achievement IN SCHOOL now would we? Don't get me started because I can go on for days...

Last year we had to donate to a food fund then were also asked to bring something each week to boot and when I questioned them about the money they went into a long spiels about the cost of food as if I am some sort of idiot. Of course I know how much food costs, but do we really need to bring a huge can of Twizzlers and peanut M&M's for the players? If they cut out the crap they'd have plenty of money for food. Let's use a little common sense, people. These moms go crazy about the food and I'm a mom myself and I am telling you I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. They police the food and watch how much you take and it's all so petty. I stay as far away as possible from these people because I have a habit of saying what's on my mind and that doesn't go over too well with the politically correct folks who love appearing virtuous while deep inside they are as mean as the day is long.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll be back with more shortly!

I need your grace to remind me to find my own

"To understand any living thing, you must, so to say, creep within and feel the beating of its heart." ~W. Macneile Dixon

It was fabulously gorgeous here today and I thought how much I wish everyone could step outside and have the bluest skies and temperature in the 70's and a gentle breeze every now and then to make them feel alive and happy like I felt today.

I spent the afternoon watching my daughter play tennis and it was wonderful mostly because she won which is always a plus because winning is everything to her. I have spent a lot of time in the past really encouraging and almost pushing this sport onto her because she is very talented and could go very far if she put her mind to it, but it got to the point where I could tell she was resenting me for wanting this for her. It's so hard for me because I didn't have parents who encouraged me and so I feel like it's important to always be in my children's corner cheering them on and guiding them where I think I see their strengths lie. Then after a tournament where she lost in a third set tiebreaker she got into the car and started screaming that the only reason she played was because of me and that sort of broke my heart because I don't want to be the person who makes her daughter feel pressured to play when she doesn't want to. I really dislike mothers like that and OMG I think I was one!

I had to take a good long look at myself and decided that perhaps maybe I was wanting and pushing this on her against her wishes. I told her I would never again make any decisions without asking her first and I've kept that promise. I've let her decide when and if she wants to play, and surprisingly, what I've found is that she started to love the sport again once she felt the pressure was off her from my end. I will not tell you that this wasn't difficult for me because I know she could be a very successful professional player if she wanted to. I know this because I've been told this by the professionals who taught her. It's so hard to feel like her talent is being wasted but if it isn't her dream or passion, then it's not really fair of me to try and force it to become hers. I don't think things end well when we do that to each other anyway. It's her life, not mine and I had to find a way to find peace with that. I think after a number of years, I'm at that point. I sit and watch her play now and don't ask anything of her except that she have fun. And when she wins, she has fun...

We went out to dinner tonight and the service was really slow but the manager came to us and gave us dessert on the house. I swear that the hot fudge sundae on top of a brownie is sitting in the bottom of my stomach like a lead balloon right now. Luckily I've got a stash of Rolaids to help ease the pain.

Inexplicably, my husband has taken the entire next week off for a vacation. His impromptu vacation will be spent at home. Joy. He has created a list of things to do about a mile long which is certainly not going over real well with me because I know how I always get roped into assisting him and how I curiously end up doing most of the work. I mean, he held up his list and was all excited as he recited it to me and I'm sorry but to do lists don't do anything for me. He seriously thinks cleaning is a fun way to spend time together. I am feeling that next week might be a heavy blogging week for me as a result of this vacation.

Watching The Hills makes all things better

I was reading Jane (I read all the time but rarely comment but I do love her blog)....anyway I was reading Jane's latest and something hit me. Yesterday I had a really bad day what with being ignored by the sports moms who know me but pretended they didn't know me until I shouted HELLO to them to make them say hello back to me (see post below).

What I realized was that I left out the most important thing that made me feel bad yesterday and it was my daughter!!! I've written before what a sore loser she is and thank God she doesn't lose too often or I'd need to be medicated to get through the dramatics. I was sitting with two of her friends who had come to watch her play. Well, my daughter comes off the court with her sourpuss face and bad attitude about the loss and since I know how she is, I didn't say anything. She started to talk to her friends and I heard her say something like, "Great, you come to see me the one time I lose," and I thought to myself, well, this isn't going to be good. So I said something about it being a good match regardless of the loss, which, of course, is never a good thing to say to her because it's only a good match if she wins. I need to remember that.

I thought I would diffuse the situation by offering to take a picture of her and her friends (I photograph the kids while they play during the season), and my daughter says, "UM...NO...look at my face. Do you really think I want to get my picture taken right now?" And she said it in a really loud, mean voice in front of her friends and all of the sudden I could just feel myself shrink because what I wanted to do was slap her face, but what I did was stand up and tell her I was going to find somewhere else to sit and to please remember her bag because I wasn't going to take it for her. Then I walked away and sat by myself and then those other moms ignored me and I think that is what sent me over the edge. Everyone was determined to hurt my feelings yesterday and they succeeded.

I don't have a cute ending to my story like Jane always does because while I had planned to rip into my daughter as soon as I could get her alone, by the time that happened, I had lost all my fight. I kept my distance from her when we returned home and wasn't overly talkative then she asked me to watch The Hills with her and I said ok. All was better. The end.

The big to-do over chicken tenders

Maybe it will become a weekly thing that I write about annoying people at sports matches.

This week I got in big trouble because my daughter had invited three of her friends to come watch her play and they, !!!GASP!!!, ate too many chicken tenders. At these sporting events, there is plenty of food because the kids go directly from school to the games and we want to make sure that there is something for them to eat since we sometimes end up being out from about 3 PM until 7 or 8 PM. Let me just preface this whole thing by saying that my daughter rarely eats anything that is brought for the teams. She doesn't like eating beforehand because she feels sick when she plays and afterwards she just wants to wait until we get home and eat what I've prepared for dinner. So most times, even though we have paid for the food, she doesn't partake in any of it which means SOMEBODY eats her portion and never once have we had a cow over her not getting her food allotment (the whole thing sounds so ridiculous when I am typing it out, but trust me, food is serious business here at the games--it's almost more important than the game itself which tells you all you need to know about what I am dealing with here).

Well....I signed up to bring sweets this week and I had made cupcakes and cookies and when my daughter's friends showed up I told them to make sure they went up to the food table to get some of the snacks that I made. Unbeknownst to me, the three of them grab plates and fill them with chicken tenders and tator tots and went off to watch my daughter play. So far so good.

After my daughter finishes, the four of them head back to the table and my daughter gets a plate and takes some chicken tenders and two of her friends grab plates and fill their plates with chicken tenders as well. They march off happily munching away. Not a minute later one of the mothers comes up to me and says, "I don't know how you want to deal with this but those chicken tenders are for the players only and the players only get 2 chicken tenders a piece(there was NO sign telling anyone that there was a limit on the chicken tenders so I call bullshit on that one), and your daughter's friends are eating a SECOND plateful of food."

I think I rolled my eyes but I'm not certain because it seemed like a moment deserving a major eye roll. I replied, "Oh sorry, I didn't realize this was their second time up there but what would you like for me to do about it now...I mean, they already have the food and are sitting down and eating." She says, "Oh, nothing, nothing, I hate being a food Nazi but I just wanted you to know that they are taking the food meant for the players."

Oh, spare me! If there's one thing I can't stand it's a perennially tanned, passive aggressive, bleached blond haired food Nazi denying she's a food Nazi. I saw the huge trays of chicken tenders and no way did my daughter's friends take anything away from the players. I then made it a point to tell her that my daughter typically never eats any of the food so I don't really see why the one time she eats and her friends have a few, there's a major to-do over it. She reiterated that she wasn't being a food Nazi but I call bullshit on that as well since if it wasn't bothering her she just would have shut up and not come up to me in the first place.

This is just the type of thing that people like her LOVE to have happen so that she can gossip about how so-and-so's friends hogged all the chicken tenders with all the other food Nazi moms who apparently stand guard over the food like we've got national security on the line. I'm sure emails were flying amongst them as well because this is the petty stuff these people live for.

In the grand scheme of things, I simply will never understand this type of behavior. When she goes to bed at night does she feel good about being so spiteful and silly? Sadly I think she does. She's the type who volunteers not because she wants to but because she needs something to feel superior about and she never lets anyone forget how much time she's putting in, how much work she's done etc.

I really have had it up to my eyeballs with ridiculous people.

Parents behaving badly

The other night I was at a sporting event and witnessed a parent behaving very badly after her child lost. What made me sad was that I am friendly with this woman and she knew that I was clearly within listening distance of her tirade. She knew I was sitting in my car because it was cold and windy outside and she was parked right beside me. She had gone back and forth to her car several times and we had talked. When her child walked to their car after the game to unload some equipment, the mother started in on her child. The negativity and shaming that went on was almost too much to bear. I slouched down in my seat at one point because I didn't want her child to see me and know that I was witnessing the severe tongue lashing. All I can say is OMFG. No one should have to hear such terrible things about themselves, especially a child (teen). I don't know what possessed this woman to say the things she was saying or why she would think that being treated in that manner would help in any way.

It has always been my experience that children respond better to kindness than to anger and negativity. I also believe that we all know when we have not lived up to our potential and that we do not need someone else pointing it out for us. It's like calling a fat person fat as though they have never considered it before. They already know they are fat. They live and breath and anguish over their fatness probably more than any of us can imagine so telling them they are fat isn't helpful in the least. Likewise, when we fail at things, or we lose, we usually know the reasons why. Telling someone they might just as well stop playing a sport because they have an off night seems cruel to me. It sends the message that perfection is expected at all times or else there will be hell to pay. Who can ever live up to that? No one that I know.

Some other things that were said (yelled): That the team was depending on this child for a win and she had let them all down (OMG). That if the child thought the mother was going to waste more money on lessons then the child had another thing coming. That the child was an embarrassment out there. It went on and on.

Sigh. I felt so guilty just sitting there doing nothing to come to the aid of this child but I didn't see how interfering would help since the mother was quite unhinged at that point. She knew I was there and she still verbally bashed her child. It seems a little sick to me that I would have preferred she do it somewhere privately, but that's what I was thinking. I was also thinking that I needed to ask someone to slap me silly should they ever see me treating my own children this way

I think it's bad enough to have your parent berate you in such a manner but to then not care that you are humiliating your child in front of others seems beyond mean to me. It makes me wonder what this woman does behind closed doors if she is so free and easy with the abusive language in public. This woman sits with little index cards at the games and keeps count of mistakes that are made by her child and when her child is done playing, she hands her the card and immediately starts talking about all the mistakes that her child made. Even if she wins, the index cards are all marked up with mistakes that took place on her way to winning! I kid you not. If I happen to be sitting next to her when she does this I always make sure to compliment the good things I have seen because that's all I seem to know what to do. I want her to know that not everyone looks at her and thinks she's a failure. I don't want her to think we are all counting the mistakes she has made so that we can shove them in her face afterwards. I am totally the opposite type of parent. I think the world is cruel enough without also having to deal with parents who make you feel less than everyone else.

I don't know. Sometimes people make me feel so weary. If we could only see how we appear to others when we're making complete buffoons of ourselves perhaps we'd try a little harder to exert a little self control. I think too many parents see their children lose and take the loss on as their own and that's when the real trouble begins. I know this because I have had to fight this feeling myself sometimes. I've had to tell myself that I am not helping my children when I am projecting my insecurities onto them. I am not my child. My child is not me. Losing a game is not the end of the world and I just don't understand why some parents act as though it is. I think negativity begets negativity. I think parents should lift their children up and not tear them down but that's just me.

On winning and losing

"If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" ~Vince Lombardi

Here is one of many reasons why I love my son. For the past couple of years he has been playing a team sport in college where his team has won only one time each year (they play about 95 games each season). Tonight, when he called, I asked him who they were playing and I asked him if there was a potential for a win tonight, and he replied without hesitation, "There's potential for a win every time we go out and play."

I honestly don't know where he comes from because we are a family of mostly sore losers here and I say that with the utmost kindness and love because, well, they are my family and I guess I have to. My husband was an athlete growing up and no one loses nastier than he does except, perhaps, my youngest daughter who is a carbon copy of him only cuter. Losing for them is personal and it is painful and it is a reminder that they cannot control everything. I think if I was an outsider looking in, and I saw how they react when they lose, I would probably tsk, tsk and get up on a high horse to tell them to please get a life. But since I live with them, I see that their mentality is focused on winning because they do not see the point in playing if they are not playing to win and so they see losing as a waste of their time. They lose a little love for the game they are playing because winning is always the goal. Playing well doesn't seem to make them feel any better about losing. Ever. Both my husband and my daughter are very difficult personalities, they are driven and self motivated and they are both very successful in everything they do because they do things to do them THE BEST. Their approach to life makes me love them all the more because they will not concede that losing is something that will happen to them. It's just not an option they consider.

But my son? Well, we could all learn a thing or two from him about losing with grace because that is what he does. He goes to practice every day of the week and works alongside his team and he prepares himself for the next game always with the thought in mind that he has a chance of winning even when reality suggests he should probably prepare for another loss. I can't tell you how proud he makes me, how it humbles me and makes me want to be a better loser myself because I have picked up some bad habits hanging around with the rest of the crew here. My son will tell you that you cannot win everything and he finds contentment in doing his very best, in giving his all regardless of winning or losing. He doesn't think he is a loser because of the many losses his team has suffered. He always looks ahead and believes there is chance that at the end of the next game there will be a big W beside his team's name.

Anyway, I just think he's totally awesome.