You Don't Go Home With Them

I have been coaching since I was 15 and I'll be 40 in October.  I am not the best coach. I am not the worst coach. I enjoy working with kids. I enjoy the sports I coach. Tonight was not a night I enjoyed. This is not going to be one of those uplifting stories about the great lessons being part of an athletic team can teach you. This is not going to be one of those stories where the athletes rise above adversity. It is going to be one of those stories that is more common than anyone is willing to admit. If you don't want to know how ugly it can get with youth sports stop reading now!

I coach a volleyball team this year.  These girls have never touched a volleyball prior to this summer with the exception of one girl. My daughter is the one girl with any experience.  She's the youngest on the team, and most days the only white girl on the team.  She is a minority at our school. She knew she would be when she decided to come to school with me. That's right, she chose to come to a high minority, high poverty school because she wanted to be here. She believes in what the school stands for and will tell anyone who will listen how proud she is to go to our school. Her race has not been a problem until tonight.

We had a small crowd at the game. The girls were playing well in a close game.  Everywhere we have been this season people have been positive and encouraging. The girls expected the same at home. I'm saddened to say that a few people in a small crowd ruined what had been such a positive experience for a great group of young ladies. As the girls are learning about volleyball, so is the community.  I could chalk this up to a learning experience for all of us but, it's a ugly, harsh way to learn. Lack of education, poverty, or race is no excuse to holler at kids that they're awful. None of those factors are a reason to holler out a number of a child, on your own team, and say get her out of there. There is also never a reason to point at kids and make racial comments,  but a few people did. The comments made to my daughter brought her to tears.

As her coach and as her mother, I really wanted to walk across the court and go beat the hell out of the people ruining this experience for my child and her teammates.   I was able to tell Josie "pull yourself together. Your made of stronger stuff than that! Don't worry about what they say, you go home with me!

To be fair, my daughter wasn't the only one targeted.  By the end of the second set I had two in tears and two ready to go across the court to fight grown folks. I did what I could by having the ad ask them to leave. That quited the rest of the crowd, but the damage was done. The team that gets praise from some of the best teams around for their sportsmanship,  joy of playing, and positive team spirit did not enjoy winning the third set against a team that beat them just last week in three sets.  The girls did not have a good time. One could not finish the game because she was so upset. The girls couldn't shake the negativity from a few people in their community.

Such things are not what youth sports are designed to teach! I'm not naive.  I've been coaching for 20 years and heard some pretty ugly things hollered in MY general direction. When you holler ugly things to student athletes, to someone's child..... well that's a whole other story. I would have loved to take all the girls home with me last night and show them the love and respect they deserved on the court. As a coach, parent and educator,  I felt the need to process with the next generation how to handle an ugly situation, when it happens by people who should know better, but sadly the rest of the girls weren't going home with me. I hope conversations were had, egos were smoothed and confidence was rebuilt in other homes last night even if all I could do was have only one of those conversations with only one child!

Queen Josephine Turns 14!

Josie sedated after her first surgery.

The Queen has turned 14!  Okay, Queen Josephine turned 14 on Thursday.  As I'm baking her chocolate cake for her birthday party I've been looking at some photos of our little Queen.  Her existence into this world did not come easy, as you can see from the picture.  She was early and minutes after she was born her lung collapsed.  She was rushed to neonatal where she spent a few weeks due to her lung collapsing and fluid in her other lung.  While the NICU was trying desperately to save her life, the Queen would pull out her tubes whenever she was not sedated.  It was almost three weeks before we even knew what her eyes looked liked due to the sedation because she wasn't cooperative with the NICU staff or equipment, but they admired her fighting spirit!

Breathing on her own and chunky cheeks

The first year of the Queen's life she had pneumonia so many times that she had to be placed on specialized formula from England.  Despite being sick more than she was well, she hit all her milestones and was a happy baby!  I waited years to have a little girl to dress up and fix her hair, but like with everything concerning the Queen, she did things in her own time.  Poor girl didn't have a full head of hair until she was almost three!  Speech issues due to funny formations in the back of her throat didn't hinder her communicating with the world that she was here to stay and in charge!

I parent her different than the boys.  It probably has something to do with the fact that she is my only girl.  My husband will be very sweet and doting, I on the other hand can be very demanding and pushy.  My expectations for how she behaves, how she dresses and most importantly how she becomes a strong woman in the end drive many of our interactions.  Raising a Queen over a follower can be a grey hair experience.  Trust me I have the proof on my head. It's not always easy looking in a mirror and bumping two large personalities.  I'm sure that the boys are entertained by the fireworks at times.

 People assume that she takes after me.  If being bossy and stubborn are inherited traits, she got them honestly from yours truly.  Lots of people say she's a mini me, but that is not really true.  Queen Josephine is her own person! It is true that we share many of the same interests, but she participates in the world a lot easier than I do.  Like a true Queen, she really doesn't care about public opinion.  She does her own thing.  Her selection of friends in eclectic and not many people stay strangers for long.  Of all my kids, she works the hardest for everything that she gets!  School is not easy for her like it was for me.  It takes her a long time to read and she's a little bit of a perfectionist (I think it's a requirement for Queens). The Queen is confident that she has much to offer the world (and so is her mom)!  Time goes by very fast, but I'm excited to see the kingdom Queen Josephine creates for herself over the next 14 years!

Easter ten years ago!

The Queen at 14!

Flashback!

Engaging in the Dish Battle

After spending the last two hours of mind numbing health assessments for the insurance company, I am currently "supervising" my darling daughter doing the dishes, AT 945PM!  This has become an almost daily battle with her and she is a master procrastinator! Here's Josie's top 5 current attempts at avoiding dishes and engaging in battle with mom!

1. I have never seen someone so young need to use the bathroom so much when it is time to do the dishes.  She pees more than a woman having twins and only when she has to do the dishes.  I have counted twelve trips to the rest room from the time that she started the dishes to the time that I told her she could no longer use the rest room until the dishes were done!  Must be the water she isn't running when she is proclaiming how unfair it is that her only chore is doing the dishes that causes such bladder issues!

2. Three hours ago I learned that the dishwasher (that's as old as she is) has a plate warming feature!  Imagine that, plate warming!  Back in my day we called that the drying cycle and it did not impede our ability to unload the dishwasher and reload all the stuff that you were not planning on washing by hand.  Why we would need a plate warmer when everyone eats cereal or pop tarts 12 hours later for breakfast is beyond me, but apparently the plate warmer feature can't be disturbed?

3. 8:45 and 9:45 are about the same time!  Never mind that the girl is gifted in math and can add and subtract in her head faster than I can punch numbers in the calculator!  The time space continuum is only disrupted when Josephine has to do the dishes!

4. Josie has testing next week!  Really, state testing versus dishes?  Next WEEK?!  This impacts getting the dishes done tonight how?  Yeah!  She really couldn't answer that question either, but I can!  It does not and it will not effect testing next week either!  If testing is that important than said smarty pants daughter will make sure that the dishes are done before 8pm, the stated bed time that she has requested for next week. Oh and mom will remember that she requested such an early bed time!

5. Doing dishes is unfair labor practices because Josie's primary job is going to school and making good grades so she can go to Mercer!  I like how she throws the old Alma Mater in there.  Despite being informed that Josie will be paying for college all by herself and could probably use a skill such as dish washing to cover her $40,000 a year in tuition costs to go to Mercer, Josie feels that focusing solely on her academics is her best bet to becoming a Bear like mom.

I know that I will have to go put half the dishes that she is washing by hand back into the sink for her to redo because she half washed them thinking: One, no one would check and Two, mom wouldn't dare make her food in dirty bowls, pots or pans!  She isn't without resources and has proposed on numerous occasions possible solutions to the dish dilema.  Here are Josie's solutions to the daily dish battle:
1. Everyone take care of their own dishes.
2. Colin do the dishes
3. Mom do the dishes
4. Everyone can stop eating so much so no one will have to do the dishes
5. Hire a maid to do the dishes
At least she has some possible solutions to her avoidance behaviors, but her mother just won't fund or let Josie implement any of her solutions.  Apparently doing dishes makes it a rough life, but the dish battle will wage on until 2018- the year Josephine graduates high school!  Please wish her luck and pray for the avoidance of nuclear warfare from mom!  Thanks!

Nobody Said This Was Easy

I've been a parent now for 17 years. I have been a coach for 25 years. I have been a teacher for 16 years. These three facts have provided me ample opportunities to work with and observe children and parent teams in the teen years. I'm here to tell you the late teen years make the terrible twos look easy! This, from a lady who teaches teens with learning and behavior issues all day probably won't instill great faith for parents of younger children. Folks, parenting a teen isn't easy!

I have birthed some pretty cool kids. They bathe daily, go to school, don't do drugs or drink, haven't been arrested so, why do I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle to be a good mom? First, my oldest hates school and doesn't achieve anywhere near his potential. Rewards, punishments, threats, and flat out knock down drag out fights have not pushed his academic performance towards a more positive direction. Our agreed upon truce is he'll pass his classes and if he does happen to fail one it will be in the range that he can recover the credit for free. Second, said oldest child will not take it easy at wrestling practice. We went to the doctor's yesterday and that's what she told him. Hey, I'm happy he's found something he loves and will work hard at but really wish it wasn't so physically demanding. Third, all three of my teens alternate between wanting me to go away and being all knowing mom who can anticipate and n provide for all needs. Hey, these teen things don't come with warning lables of when its okay for a hug, or comment, or opinion or just being present. This constant on again, off again mom is cool, mom is the worst mom ever thing is crazy!

So why isn't parenting teens easy? That whole free will thing seems to be interfering with what I think is best for my dear, sweet baby. It was easier when they just cooed and smiled at everything you did. I have succeeded in raising exactly what I set out to raise: strong, independent, self sufficient, strongly opinionated people. Be careful what you wish for because parenting it can be hard work!