There they are! Gage and Solon in all their long-haired, chicken-necklace, crazy-toothed glory. They're beautiful. 
Picture Day Postscript
Picture Day Prelude
In honor of my last post regarding School Picture Day, my mom has (lovingly) provided me with copies of several of my old school pictures. So, here I am in all my glory. From back in the days when School Pictures were a BIG DEAL. I know that’s true, because my mom has written (lovingly and gently so as not to dent the picture) on the back of each: my name, my grade, and the year. So enjoy……
1. Mushroom Haircut with ribbon hairclip*(1982, 1st grade)
2. Ruffly Rainbow Shirt with Oddly Poofy Hair (1983, 2nd grade, beginning of the tooth-loss evolution series)
3. Big Picture with No Bangs and Red Little House on the Prairie Shirt (1984, 3rd grade, check those teeth!)
4. Tasteful Bobbed Haircut and Ribbon Collar Blouse (1985, 4th grade, growing into those teeth)
5. Ruffly Denim Cowgirl Shirt with Ponytail and Real Breasts (1987, 6th grade, hello puberty)
*1982 was the year of weave-your-own ribbon barrettes with dangly beads. They were so so so awesome. On this particular day, my mom picked out my clothes, poofed and sprayed my hair, dolled me up, and told me that there was NO WAY I was wearing that ribbon barrette for School Pictures. And I actually snuck it on the bus and clipped it in my hair on the way to school. Can you imagine my mom’s reaction when the pictures came home weeks later? This was SCHOOL PICTURE DAY, after all. Oh, the horror. I remember it as my first act of evil treachery. I think I said confession for it. I’m over it now. And, ironically, glad for the memory. See how Picture Days work?
PICTURE DAY
I remember PICTURE DAY from my elementary school days. My mom would mark the calendar and make sure we got a haircut about a week before-hand. She picked out the perfect clothes, usually coordinating ensembles for all the sisters. She would actually blow-dry and style my hair in the morning. Starting in 5th grade, she would even let me put on some blush and lip-gloss. This was PICTURE DAY, after all.
So, yesterday was Picture Day at my sons’ school. Big deal, right? For me, not so much. Count this as yet another entry in my Mom-of-the-Year application. I did make a mental note of the date. I did consider getting the boys a haircut. Although, Solon declined (vehemently) the suggestion that we go in for a trim. He thinks he wants long hair. I even gently accused him of looking a little Bieberish, but he stands by his desire for long hair. And Gage couldn’t care less. He has to tilt his head up to see himself in the bathroom mirror, which renders that giant spiky cowlick invisible to him. So, his hair lays perfectly flat, as far as he’s concerned. (Side note: Please don’t ever point out that cowlick to him. He’ll notice it in a year or two when he’s tall enough to see in the mirror. Let me enjoy this year of peaceful morning grooming.)
So, no haircuts for the boys. No big deal. I started to think about what would be the PERFECT SHIRT for them to wear…….flattering neutral color, no patterns, no collars. The problem is, I started thinking about this the night before. Around 10PM. It turns out that the PERFECT SHIRT is whatever is clean and doesn’t have any holes above chest-level. Solon decided that he wanted to wear his favorite purple shirt. The worn out T-shirt that is 2 sizes too small and has white graphics all over it (as well as not a small amount of cat hair). And, as usual, Gage couldn’t care less. He chose a striped green polo shirt with a collar that lays mostly flat. (When he returned from school that afternoon, he was wearing a striped green polo shirt with a taco meat stain all down the front. Let’s just hope his pictures were before lunch………)
So, I felt guilty all day. Don’t I care about PICTURE DAY? Don’t I want beautiful school day memories? Aren’t I good enough mom to wash laundry more than once a week? Don’t I love my kids? The answers to those questions are, respectively; no, yes, no, and yes. The truth is that I don’t care a lot about school picture day. I have tons of pictures of my kids. And I have wonderful memories of their school days. Memories I made by hanging out with them. By helping them dot their “i”s and get their “g”s facing the right way. By getting (pretend) excited about the rules of Four Square. By taking one million pictures of them myself with my iPhone. By making fun of their cowlicks on the internet.
I also think it helps that photography has come a long way in the past 20 years. Back then, school pictures were some of the only affordable portraits that families got. There was a ton of pressure to get it right. There was no instant gratification of images on a digital camera screen. You didn’t get to share uploaded photos with all your family members and “tag” each other’s kids online. You couldn’t simply print out high-quality photos in your own home. You had to actually own a camera. A camera with film, batteries, and flash cubes. You had to take 24 pictures with the hopes of getting one “keeper”. You had to drive across town to the photo store to pick up your developed film, only to find that your kids’ eyes were closed in every picture. So, the only pictures I had of my friends were the ones we traded at school. I still have most of those pictures. I wonder if my friends do too? If so, I’m glad my mom did my hair on PICTURE DAY.
When my kids’ school pictures come in, I will love them. I always do. Because they always look like themselves; silly smiles, taco stains, long hair, purple T-shirts, and all. That’s how I will remember them. To me, school pictures are a wonderful chronicle of goofiness, a rite of passage in the cattle-call of grade school, another step in the tooth-loss-evolution photo series. And I love them all.
Kentucky-Fried-Baby-Show
I just got back from 4 days in Louisville for the All Baby and Child Expo! This is the annual trade show for the juvenile product industry. Once a year, anybody who makes, sells, or reports on baby products (all 8,000 of us) descends upon a major convention center for 4 days. Sellers try to convince us that their products are the NextBigThing. Buyers try to pretend that we don’t care unless they give us a steep discount. And everyone tries to pretend that they’re there only to work and not to drink free margaritas at the Industry Reception with KC and the Sunshine Band. This year’s show was in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a refreshing change from the past 5 years, when the event was held in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is……..fine. For about 2 days. Then it begins to slowly suck your soul and your will to live. Which makes it hard to compare nursing bras and admire organic swaddling blankets.
So, we walked and walked and we talked and talked and we tried to learn all there was to know about new products. We want to find you the NextBigThing. At least 6 months before Target finds it. (Target and I have a real love/hate thing going on). We definitely noticed some trends. One thing we saw a lot of was reusable training pants. Most of the diaper companies we work with are coming out with a new training pant this season. Some are cooler than others. We’re most excited about the Flip Trainer coming from BumGenius. The design is…….well…..genius: cute colors, sturdy construction, lots of size and absorbency flexibility. Which we were excited to see. Since we pre-ordered a whole ton of them before we even saw them. We should be getting them before the end of the year. BumGenius also has a new All In One diaper coming out, called the Freetime. Totally revolutionary design in an All In One. I think it’s gonna be even awesomer than their current pocket diaper! Which is pretty awesome. Also, new prints and colors for all their products. We’ll keep you posted!
Another trend we saw a lot of was Angry Birds. On toys, on swaddle blankets, on bags. Everybody knows babies LOVE angry birds, right? I thought that the design trend this year was Owls. But I guess Owls aren’t ANGRY enough. We won’t be ordering any Angry Birds products. But we weren’t too proud to snag up all the free Angry Birds samples we could get, for our kids. We still did see a lot of Owls. And robots. Owls and robots are the new princesses and pirates. And that’s a trend I can get on board with. Watch our store in the next couple months for owls and robots on clothing, baby carriers, wet bags, and more. Can’t wait!
A big new category this year was birthing gowns. These are beautiful nighties you can wear to the hospital when you give birth. They have pretty bows and easy access for breastfeeding. And snaps for dealing with IVs and the occasional “back-door” exam. Tell me your thoughts on these gowns. I think they seem like a really expensive one-time use item that’s just gonna get blood all over it. But I can see the appeal of having something special and pretty for the most amazing day of your life.
Finally, a big trend I saw this year was FEAR. I saw all these products preying on the fears of new parents. There was a heavy, metallic belt for moms to wear over their pregnant bellies to protect their fetus from radiation. Not nuclear-power-plant-radiation, but sending-your-husband-a-text-message radiation. They had a larger than life picture of a mom using a cell phone RIGHT NEXT TO HER PREGNANT BELLY. Terrifying, right? We also saw a bumper for pregnant bellies. A big padded belt to protect your pregnant belly from………..banging into things, I guess. First of all, unless you’re a kick-boxer, how much trauma does your pregnant belly take? Also, how many of you actually want to add MORE padding to your pregnant silhouette? We saw a sort of medic-alert badge for pregnant moms. Something you can wear to let medical professionals know that you’re pregnant if you’re unconscious for some reason. Not really a terrible product, but the marketing showed a woman jogging and wearing her magic-pregnant-badge. Implying that, if you’re active during pregnancy, you’re gonna somehow end up unconscious, and the medics will do something terrible to your unborn baby. And you might not be wearing your belly bumper…….. Another entry in the category of reasonable-product-with-terrifying-marketing was a rescue sack for lowering babies out of burning or evacuated buildings. I can see the rationale for this product. The unnerving thing was that the exhibit for the product featured a larger-than-life graphic of a baby being thrown out the window of a burning building. I assume that it was photoshopped. I’m gonna just have to believe that……….
All in all, it was a fantastic show. We had so much fun meeting new people and seeing old friends. There are so many amazing new products out there that we can’t wait to share with you. We saw and ordered new items that we are REALLY excited about! In the next weeks, we’ll be announcing entire new lines of high-quality nursing bras, cold weather baby gear, newborn clothing, diapers, training pants, nursing pillows, toys, car seat covers, art supplies, diaper bags, and more!
We promise to tell you all the details as the products arrive. But, we don’t want anyone to steal ALL our ideas.
Fishermen
My boys are fishermen now. Grandpa bought them their own fishing poles, brought them to the lake, and taught them the joys of throwing expensive lures into trees and weeds and each other’s hair. And they are absolutely obsessed! They each got their own tackle box (with their own money). And they each have their own pole (one of them is already on Pole 2.0). They have even started reading old Field and Stream back-issues Shiloh brings home from his waiting room. Here’s a picture of Gage after the caught the biggest perch I’ve ever seen in Lake Winnebago. Granted, I’ve only seen 2 non-breaded perch in my life. But it looks pretty big. My boy has some fish-catching skills! He’s still working on his fish-touching skills though. That’s his friend Sam actually holding the fish.
We pulled this beauty out of the channel near our house. I can’t tell you what kind of fish it was. Solon said it was a striped bass. And he’s usually right. All I know is that it seemed like a very nice fish, but pretty angry. Shiloh was working late that night, so that’s my hand you see. Actually touching an angry fish. This was early in our fishing experience, so the boys had not yet developed any worm-touching or fish-touching skills. It was a busy, slimy night for me.
I brought Solon and Gage to Gander Mountain for the very first time. The overwhelming selection of bait and lures rendered them catatonic for awhile. Once they came to, they got busy choosing the biggest, spinniest, most shark-like lures they could find. For catching sheephead off the dock in Menasha. It’s all good. They were so excited by the selection, I let them choose whatever they wanted as long as it was under $10. Solon also chose giant rubber crawfish that smell like butt and pepper.
Solon has learned to bait his own hook. I’m so proud. Here he is impaling a worm on a bloody hook in order to catch a fish that he will immediately throw back. So as not to make it suffer.
I’m very proud of my fishermen. Fishing such a wholesome, nostalgic summer activity. I love it that they can’t wait to get out on the water as soon as Dad gets home. I love that they know where Walleye like to feed and what bait to use for panfish and how to tie on a lure so it won’t fly away on the first cast. If I could get either one of them to actually eat fish, even in stick form, I’d feel like we’re making progress.
FirstdayofschoolFirstdayofschoolFirstdayofschool!
Here’s Solon all ready to go on the first day of 5th grade. As he gets older I’m really starting to notice the difference between boys and girls. This year on the playground, all the girls were standing together wearing well-thought-out ensembles of new fall clothes. They were nervously looking around themselves and touching their hair. The boys ran around like spazzes and fell down a lot. Cuz falling down is fun. Solon is wearing a “Gabler Orthodontics” t-shirt. The boy’s never been to an orthodontist in his life. I picked up the shirt at Goodwill because it had a high thread count. That’s good enough for Solon! He attempted to wear his new black shoes with white tube socks today. Not because he wanted to wear his new shoes but because they were closest to the door on the way out. Without implying that how one dresses is all that important and without passing any sort of judgement on his clothing decisions, I gently guided him towards a pair of sandals. Then, I gently guided him towards those same sandals, only without the white tube socks. I think he looks pretty fly…..
Here’s my son Gage all set to go on the first day of 2nd grade! He’s wearing a spiffy polo shirt. Pretty stylin’! (Shiloh picked it out. He’ll always pick a polo shirt. Polo shirts speak to him. Muscle shirts speak to Gage. Anything clean speaks to me.)
Gage also attempted to wear socks with his sandals. I gently guided him towards putting the socks in his backpack and deciding later on if he really needed socks. See how I validated his wardrobe choices and didn’t undermine his personal sense of style? All while making sure I don’t become the “sandals-with-socks” mom.
I almost just dropped my boys off and left this morning. I know it’s the first day of school and all. But the boys were pretty chill about the whole thing. They’ve had the same kids in their class every year. And they’ve been running around the neighborhood with those same kids all summer. Today was really just another hot summer day with friends. (Trapped inside a non-air-conditioned building without video games.) But, as I pulled away, I realized I was about to miss a momentous occasion. I turned back. Here’s a picture of my sister dropping her oldest daughter off for her first day of kindergarten. Now, THAT’S a big deal. It’s such a big deal that my sister and I hugged. We don’t hug. But congratulations were in order. “Congratulations on keeping your child alive and well long enough to pass them into the jaws of the Neenah Joint School District. Job well done. Job over.” Ok, not really. But it’s still a big old deal. That’s my purple-shirted niece clinging to the hands of her purple-shirted bestest friend. See, girls are different. I bet they coordinated outfits.
Looking at all those giddy, smiling faces warmed my heart. I love our school. I love the building and the kids and the teachers. It’s a real testament to Roosevelt Elementary to see how happy everyone was to be there today: parents, students, staff, and all. The crossing guard was grinning. The playground supervisor was singing. It’s like they were all trying to out-do each other with back-to-school joy!
But look at this smiling face. Can you hear her heart singing? THAT’s the face of a person happy to see the school year start.
Lullaby
I think that most parents have a special little song they sing with their children. Maybe it’s a tune they made up using their baby’s name, maybe it’s a favorite soothing lullaby, maybe it’s a silly song they learned as a child themselves. I know that my husband, Shiloh, and I had a very special song that we sang to our oldest son, Solon. We started before he was even born and we continued well into the preschool days. It was always the same song that would soothe his boo-boos and help him fall asleep and ease the pain of long car trips……….a tender, heartfelt lullaby:
“The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.
See, nothing says “Parents of The Year” like a lullaby that includes a dozen references to illegal gambling, glorifies whiskey-drinking, and fondly recalls someone dying in his sleep. Aaaaah, the golden memories of childhood………..
It all started in a moment of pre-natal, hormone-induced weepiness. I was reading a baby book one night (like every night the previous 16 months) when I realized, in a rush of horror, that my husband was not bonding with our fetus! He couldn’t know the beauty and awe of growing a brand-new human being inside yourself! He didn’t get to share the kicks and hiccups that were an endearing reminder of the bond I shared with our unborn child. He didn’t even get to experience the vomiting and heartburn that made the whole thing so magical. So, I turned to him in tears and loudly cried, “You never sing to the baby!” At which point, I dissolved into ugly sobs of accusation.
Shiloh sighed and gave me a loving look pf patient bewilderment. His smile said “I love you, crazy woman.” but his eyes said “I have no idea what’s happening right now.” Anyway, he weighed his options, took a deep breath, leaned in towards my huge belly, and started singing…………”On a warm summer’s eve, on a train bound for nowhere………” And he proceeded to sing the entire song, verses, chorus, and all. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. You have to remember, Shiloh is the least musical person I have ever met. I don’t even know how we ended up together. He can’t clap the beat to a song even if I hold his hands and clap them for him. He constantly leaves my car radio tuned to a country station. And he knows the words to exactly 3 songs:
1. The Gambler
2. Amen (which technically only has one word)
3. Silent Night
(He thinks he knows the words to “On Wisconsin” too, but you really only need the first four words to this song, the rest is just fist-pumping.)
So, the fact that he choose The Gambler to be Solon’s theme song is no real commentary on his feelings about impending parenthood. It was the most appropriate song he knows. And it’s beautiful. We sang it to Solon each night before he was born and we sang it at the hospital on his first day of life. I rocked him to sleep hundreds of times with that song. I could feel his tense little body melt into my arms every time I started singing. I would sing the song at the top of my lungs as he screamed in his car seat on long trips. The Gambler was HIS song. We tried using it on Gage a few years later, but it backfired. Cuz every time I tried to sing Gage to sleep with it, Solon would join in loudly from the other room and scare the baby. So Gage got a rotating succession of Indigo Girls tunes for his lullaby.
Anyway………..the boys got older. My hormones let up. Naptime become a non-battle. Gradually The Gambler faded out of use.
But earlier this summer, as my extended family sat around the campfire at the lake house, Shiloh started singing The Gambler. Loudly. It was totally out of the blue. (Actually, it was out of a woodsmoke and beer-induced spiral descent into well-deserved vacation mode). The adults all smiled, remembering nostalgically those baby days. The days of walking the floors with a feverish baby or rocking a little one to sleep when the rest of the world was already sleeping. But, by the time Shiloh had reached the first chorus that night by the campfire, Solon had joined in! I think he surprised himself by knowing all the words to a song he doesn’t ever remember hearing. It triggered something buried deep in his 10-year-old memory. He had that same bewildered look on his face of “I have no idea what’s happening right now” that Shiloh gave me all those years back.
Shiloh and Solon went on lie together in the hammock and sing the song at least 20 more times at the top of their lungs. I’m sure all the lake neighbors appreciated it. I don’t know because I went to bed after the second round. But the fact that I could sleep with all that howling going on speaks to the power of The Gambler………
Set in Stone
My kids and I drove past our old house in Appleton last week. It’s funny how rarely we get over in that neck of the woods. It’s only 5 miles away from where we live now, but it feels like another world! We moved to our current house in Neenah 6 years ago and we love it. It’s definitely “home”. But there is a lot of nostalgia for that “old” house: it was our first house, our first yard, our first mortgage. Both of our kids were born there. (Well, they were born in hospitals nearby, but you know what I mean). So, driving through that old neighborhood brings back such emotion.
Gage doesn’t remember the house. He was only 18 months when we moved. But Solon remembers. In fact, he didn’t want to move. For the first year, he got sad every time he thought about his old Appleton house. It was the only home he had ever known. And for a long time, our Neenah house didn’t feel very homey. It was all spiders and moldy carpet. And exposed wires. At least now the moldy carpet is gone.
So, we drove past our old house. The boys saw the windows of their old rooms. They saw the perennial gardens that mom planted. They saw the backyard where they used to swim naked in the kiddie pool (I have pictures). They saw the screen door that Daddy installed all by himself. My kids saw all this stuff. But all I saw was walls. Two beautiful stone retaining walls. That were still so. damn. straight.
The old Appleton house was where I discovered gardening. I loved planting perennials and flowers and herbs. I grew seeds and made compost and cultivated raised beds and fantasized about flowers all winter long. Don’t get me wrong, I was a terrible gardener. I still am. I’m a Darwinian waterer: I only want my fittest plants to survive. I’m a very forgiving weeder. What’s a “weed”, anyway? Dandelions are so pretty! But I still love having gardens. And at my old house I wanted MORE gardens. We had a small lot and a sloping front yard. I decided that, if I had retaining walls in the front, I would have even MORE room to grow weeds. I mean, have a garden……… For those of you who know anything about my life in 2004, you know that these retaining walls were not going to get built by the traditional wall-building member of our family. Poor Shiloh was a little…………busy. (Poor guy. This was still a year before they actually passed laws saying it was ILLEGAL to force a person to be that busy………but, once again, that’s a whole other post). So, I decided that I was gonna build me some walls. This was a huge undertaking. I studied books for months. I examined gravel. I collected tools. I sought the advice of my Dad, who is famous around central Wisconsin for the blinding straightness of his retaining walls. I took at least 12 trips to Home Depot to pick up stones since there’s only so much you can haul in the trunk of a Nissan Altima with two screaming children.
That brings me to the most important part of my story: the screaming children. Those of you with small children who have every tried to get anything exciting done (like peeing or unloading the dishwasher) know what I’m talking about. These walls were only gonna get built over the course of several weeks in short 21-minute sessions between breastfeedings and butt-wipings. My kids were 2 years old and 6 months old. These are not helpful ages when it comes to masonry. So, I planned around naps and playdates and that one day in July when Shiloh had an afternoon off. I even did a little building in the dark. And the rain.
But build it, I did. And I felt like a superwoman. Honestly, I think I (like most moms) already was a superwoman: I clipped coupons for tampons and drew maps of garage sale routes every Friday to save a few dimes, I remembered every birthday in my in-laws family and forged my husband’s name on the cards, I grew two human beings from scratch, for God’s sake! But none of that made me feel as powerful as building those walls. If you need tangible proof of your superwoman-ness, there’s nothing more tangible than stone. When we drove past our old house last week, I noticed that the paint was peeling and the front steps were pretty crumbly. The gardens looked like a Costa Rican jungle. But those walls were still so. damn. straight. Super-humanly straight.
My super-woman status is set in stone.
albums and 8 tracks
Shiny circle of mystery.
My kids don’t know what a CD is.
At piano lessons yesterday, their teacher Mr. Joe gave me a couple copies of his new CD. (Well, I guess it’s his new “album”, but let’s not even get started on what an “album” is…….). My kids were mystified. I guess they had never seen music presented in square, shrink-wrapped form. I told them that it was a copy of Joe’s “new CD”. They tore off the wrapping to verify that, indeed, there WAS a disc in there. Then they got excited. They love music, especially Mr. Joe’s music.
“Does it have Melody? What about Only Love?” they eagerly asked, rattling off the names of some of their favorite Joe tracks (again, let’s not even get started on “tracks”…..). I explained that, no, it didn’t have any of their old favorite songs, that it was a new CD. I got blank stares. I realized that my kids don’t understand a CD as a source of new music. In their world, music flows from internet to computer to iPod to ears. To them, CDs are things we occasionally create using music we already have. You don’t make CDs out of new music. You make them out of old music. So why would you make a Joe CD without “Only Love“?
So, I explained the old-school music industry to them. Where musicians make a whole batch of songs, some really good and some not as good and then put them all on a CD roughly once every 2 years and ask you to trust them and buy the whole CD. And if you want your friends to have one of the good songs too, they ask you to please buy another whole CD. Now, I’m digital-music-savvy. I have one entire second mortgage on my house just to finance my iTunes habit. But the old-school music industry still works on me sometimes. It worked for me with Mr. Joe’s new album. I trust him. I love his music. I have a friend who would love his music. So, I bought 2 copies of his CD, songs-unheard. And I was not disappointed. Check out Sly Joe and the Smooth Operators. You won’t be disappointed either!
The boys and I listened to the CD in the car all the way home from piano lessons. We even took the long way so we could listen to one song twice (and so we could enjoy an extra 4 minutes of air-conditioning, but that’s a whole other post). The boys loved the new CD but they seemed bummed when we got home. They were disappointed that all of Mr. Joe’s new music was trapped on the CD in our car. They really like listening to music on their iPods.
I see a lesson in ripping in their future……..
What’s in a name?
Reasons I Might be a Soccermom:
1. I am at soccer practice and/or games 3 nights each week.
2. I am on friendly terms with the staff at Soccer Locker.
3. I carry folding camp chairs and a case of juice pouches in my trunk at all times, including an extra chair in case a teammate’s parent forgets one.
4. I ordered a team photo package that included buttons with my sons’ soccer pictures on them.
5. I know what Offside means.
6. I know the names of each kid on my son’s team.
Reasons I Might NOT be a Soccermom (or might be a Bad Soccermom):
1. My boys play on a recreational team and not a competitive team. Competitive soccer seems to involve more traveling than I am up for. We had to drive to Town of Menasha once a week for practice and even that annoyed me.
2. I didn’t own folding camp chairs until 6 weeks ago and I spent the first 4 games of the season sitting on cold wet grass.
3. I don’t drive a minivan (see previous posts regarding the likelihood of my getting a new van), but I do drive a sensible Camry/Subaru/Honda-type car that fits right in at Soccer Jamboree.
4. I ordered the photo buttons, but I will not wear them. I will save them and give them to my sons’ future wives for ridicule value (just as my mother-in-law did for my husband).
5. I lied before. I don’t really know what Offside means, but one of my kids does. And I’m close. One more season and I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
6. I only know all the names of the kids on the team that was required to put their names on their jerseys. The name-optional team……not so much. Again, one more season and I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
I don’t know. It seems like many of the things you do as a “soccermom” are just things you do as a regular “mom”. You haul your kids around to their events. You make sure they get a snack. You get to know their friends and their friends’ parents. You buy them the gear they need. You cheer for them no matter how they’re doing. You make sure you have a comfy place to sit while you wait for them. That’s motherhood. And I love it. Call me a soccermom if it helps you label me. But, can we call it SokkermÖm instead? That seems edgier.
So, you tell me. Am I a soccermom? Is there still hope?
