It Only Hurts When I Blog

Rise and Shine, Weekenders! It's Saturday!

I woke Charlie up this morning at 5am and told him the alarm wasn't set. He reminded me it was Saturday. Oops.

I knew it was 'Day 68', but not what day of the week it was! My bad.

We're supposed to have 300 boy scouts camping on the property near us this weekend. That should be fun. Someday I guess I should do a blog about the scouts. Noted.

You're looking pretty Bloggy-eyed this morning, but you've got to get up and take the kids to the ballfield, soccer field, dance class, piano lessons, etc.

Here’s to all the parents who have children who play sports. Any kind of sports, or the 'all year round can’t keep them straight gotta drive the kids somewhere even in your sleep' kind of sports schedule.

Get a Hit, Get a Hit, Get a H.I.T!

My son played basketball and football. He even played a little baseball, until he overheard his COACH telling another coach that ‘his team sucks this year’, and he quit in disgust. I was right there with him in that decision, by the way. We're supposed to encourage our youngsters, aren't we? My daughter had weekly dance class, and if I remember correctly, she helped out the cheerleaders sometimes.

In between the organized sports, we had the YMCA for swimming, day sports camp in the summer, and the recreation center nearby with go carts and batting cages. We swam so much at the Y it turned my hair green once from the chlorine. I wear a bathing cap now.

Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, waaaaay back!

I always seemed to be picking up several other kids as I made the rounds to various sporting events. Their parents never drove. Their parents never went to the games. Why me? Was it because I didn’t protest?

Be Aggressive – B. E. Aggressive! Be aggressive, B.E. aggressive!

My son played Offense, Defense, Special teams, Kicking team, everything. I don’t know how he could keep running, but he did. On a cold winter’s day, the spectators were freezing, and we lined up at the concession stand to get some hot coffee and hot dogs. A family member (no names) said ‘It sure is cold. I’ll just stand here and break wind!’ Of course, she meant block the cold wind from hitting the rest of us. Uhhh, thanks. Appreciate the thought...

During the summer – my ex would take the kids camping for 2 weeks in Maine. That was a break for ME too that I looked forward to. My son asked me ‘You’re still going to bring everyone to practice, aren’t you?’ NO, I’M NOT, they can get their own darned ride for a change while I am at the beach, getting my UV radiation fix and checking out all the studly dudlies walking the beach.

The ‘little boy’ up the street who I drove to football practice (maybe basketball too) was already growing a beard and thick hair on his legs at the age of 12 – I thought it was DIRT until I did a double take. He could have lied about his age, gotten a license and driven himself to practice.

And there were some kids that didn't play sports...What did THEY do?

Another ‘boy up the street’ was so accident prone he couldn’t play sports. Just visiting our house was enough for him to start bleeding somewhere, without fail. His mother just accepted it as a fact of life. If he wasn’t in a padded cell, he would be bleeding in no time. I’d just call her up if he was incapable of riding his bike home, and she’d come to get him in the car and patch him up again. That is a mother’s love for you.

There were brothers nearby whose parents owned a dairy farm. They smelled SO much of cattle all the time, they were teased a lot by some of the other kids. (Of course, you understand that they could 'perfume' the entire school bus even with their ‘good clothes’ on). They pretty much just went to school and worked on the farm and didn’t play sports. My son was friends with the younger brother, and he slept over there one night. Up they all got at 6am to milk. My son said when he returned home – ‘I will NEVER be a FARMER – ALL THEY DO IS WORK!’.

My daughter tattled on her friend once – ‘Mom, she won’t play with ME, all she wants to do is hide behind the recliner and KISS my brother’. Ok little darlings – stay in sight where I can see you, and maybe you should be playing sports instead!

That’s enough for today! Be careful and keep an eye on those little darlings!

Update at 11:25 - we are heavily engaged in YARD WORK this morning. It is cloudy and windy here - you know how Charlie feels about WINDY days. My job is pruning and hedge trimming with the pruners and electric trimmer.

I've only finished the pruning of the shrubs and started on the trimming, and I had to come in to take a break. My delicate little computer-keyboard bloggy-hands are sore and shaky and I can't lift my arms over my head anymore. ;-) Does that mean the shrubs are too tall?

I've also decided that I hate 4 of our shrubs, and if I hadn't already pruned them nearly to death I think I would have asked Charlie to pull them up. They look awful, but maybe it's like a bad haircut - it'll fill in when it grows back.

Some animal(s) already ate our peas and beets in the garden. I hope they enjoyed them. The pear tree has baby pear-lets on it, and there are green strawberries in the strawberry patch that will be ripening soon.

TTFN!