One sport done…moving on with some health tips

I did it.

We quit something.

But instead of having the sky open up and shower me with rainbows and beautiful flowers and pockets of time, I felt like a guilty, sad wreck.

Brandan’s been playing competitive soccer for a few years and the problem with that sport here is that it doesn’t actually end. We get a few weeks off in between the end of one season and the start of the next but there are indoor games and practices all winter - on top of all the hockey. And the thing about hockey, which also never ends, is that he loves it more. So when Brandan first told us he didn’t want to play soccer anymore we brushed off the notion given the ol’ regret factor. We didn’t want him hanging over us in fifteen years asking why we didn’t push him to stick with it so we pulled rank and insisted he had to finish the year.

What’s different now is that Emmie has entered the competitive soccer ring too. With both girls also playing hockey the race has become a bit of a circus. There are four families involved in the phone calls…you bring them, I’ll pick them up, you take ours here, I’ll take yours there…the kids love that part the most because there’s always a play-date overlap. All this picking up, dropping off, swapping is fun for a weekend but something’s got to give years into it. Brandan’s resolve to drop soccer stayed firm. And then his AAA hockey schedule for the spring arrived. Five tournaments in a row, were they for real? There’s no way he could juggle that and soccer and final exams and projects. T’was time to do the deed.

I’ve been managing Brandan’s soccer team from its beginning so I have a soft spot for the group. I typed my message to the coach with a big huge lump in my throat, thinking about four year old Brandan when he first started playing and how even though I was pregnant and bed-rested with Emersan, I couldn’t bear to miss things. He was so enthralled with Danny as his coach back then and wanted so badly to name the baby after him. It’s actually because of soccer that we have Molly and Danny in our lives. I remembered how thrilled Brandan was when he first made the inter-city team. All those tournaments to all those new places and when they started winning tournaments and cups, it felt like we won them too we were so connected. The Titans are such a tight family…Remo was coaching too…the fear that we’d never be on a team like that again…saying good-bye to the team…

I clicked send on my email and sat there and cried. Cried! I felt no relief. The coach wrote back from his vacation in Mexico and begged us to come there and discuss the matter further. No wait a minute, that’s how I wanted it to go, Mexico might have taken this in a different direction! His coach did write back…to ask us to reconsider. We took the rest of the week discussing it here and there and in the end, wrote back to say Brandan would play for the winter team until March but that was it. I hope one day he’ll want to play again. I mean, imagine how embarrassing it would be if I kept at it and became a better soccer player [enter laugh track].

I didn’t expect that Brandan quitting soccer would affect me so much but I guess in the grand scheme of things it’s not just about the soccer. Brandan has a mind all his own and he’s changing fast. I expect him to grow up but then again, I don’t want him to. The guy is so responsible in that he looks after himself and his schedule and he worries about getting to the train on time every day and being prepared for things and he carries that 500 pound bag back and forth. But he’s still only twelve years old, has terrible spelling and totally (mostly?) needs us.

<Sigh>

To move from something that won’t actually change your life to some things that might actually…I just watched an episode of the Doctor’s:

 

• Want to lose weight? Cut carbs!
• Eat garlic – it stimulates the multiplication of infection-fighting white blood cells, increases the efficiency of antibody production and can act as an antioxidant to reduce the buildup of free radicals in the bloodstream.
• Eat mushrooms – they contain antioxidants, B vitamins riboflavin and niacin and have antiviral, antibacterial and anti-tumor effects.
• And eat pistachios – they’re high in fiber, antioxidants and unsaturated fatty acids, which help lower blood pressure.
• Remove nail polish stains with whitening toothpaste. 
• Treat blisters with antiseptic mouthwash.
• Treat bladder infections by drinking a ½ tsp of baking soda and 8 oz of water.
• Eating cheese before drinking wine will prevent wine-stains
• To ease earaches put a few drops of warm olive oil into your child’s ear and then rest a garlic clove in the outer ear.
• Have a mole check done! (Note: last year I actually had a pre-cancerous mole removed and it wasn’t a mole I would’ve flagged as suspicious. The doctor told me if I would’ve left it… it would’ve turned into cancer. Talk about scary!)
• While you’re at it…book your appointments for your annual checkups.
• Take Vitamin D.
• Have a blister? Put antiseptic mouthwash on it to dry it out.
• Halt the salt from your diet.
• Moisturize before you shower to give your skin extra protection. The steam in the shower will open up your pores for deeper moisturizing.

  I made BIG progress this weekend with the house overhaul and I’m absolutely, positively GIDDY about it. I’m just a simple girl with simple needs.

[Enter laugh track AGAIN]

 

Comments

[Jeanetteleblanc]

Okay, so here's the deal.

When I read anything you write I feel like a slacker mom. My kids are in...no activities. Not one.

They've tried and were lackluster and I let them quit :) I worry the opposite side as you - that I'm just not exposing them enough, or that I should make them - but basically I'm just naturally inclined to do anything that supports my inherent laziness!

J.

PS: Am I the only one concerned about the components of whitening toothpaste if it can remove nail polish stains. Um- scary.

[Allisun]

Ok first off...we live lives where we're always doubting ourselves. It's the ol' bang situation. Remember how we'd grow them out to cut them to grow them out again?

All the things my kids are involved in...I never did a stitch of it growing up, I came from the total flip side. But now? I actually ended up with a little regret for that, I wish I would've played team sports growing up. My parents didn't make it an option so I invested that time getting a suntan!

My kids actually love playing sports, but if I was pulling teeth to get them there, if there wasn't any interest? No way would I drag them here and there. Too much princess in me!!!

I actually wonder often who the kids would be if we invested as much time and money into making them smarter as we do in sports. Finding balance, that's what it's all about.

As long as they have something they're passionate about, who cares if it changes or it starts at a certain time at the field, as long as they have something.

You have no worries, dahling...you have many, many gifts you're giving your daughters. And creativity will take them farther than any ol' puck in the net that's for sure.