That was a cold swish!

My son Eli is going to be 8 in February. He’s a fanatical sports fan and passionate practical joker. If ever there was a kid more destined to adore the Harlem Globetrotters, it would be him.

So for his birthday party this year, we proposed taking him and a few friends to see the Globetrotters at U.S. Airways Center. They’re coming the weekend of his birthday which magically fits into our busy birthday schedule. But, since he’s never heard of them, he prefers to play a scrimmage football game with a few pals in a park near our house and have lunch at Wolflies, a local sports bar in our area. Certainly lunch and football in the park will cost less, require less work, and necessitate far less planning and energy. So why can’t we simply go for the party he wants?

Because something is deeply flawed within our psyches and we simply cannot choose the easier path.

“But Eli,” I find myself arguing, “Papa first took me to see the Globetrotters when I was your age and it was one of the greatest days ever! One that I never forgot.”

“Well,” he reasoned, “Do they play in the NBA?”

“No,” My husband, Mark, explained. “They’re kind of in a league of their own.”

“No thanks,” he politely announced. “I want to play in the park.”

“But, Eli,” I went on, “You can play in the park any day. The Harlem Globetrotters don’t come to Phoenix very often and it’s an amazing coincidence that they’re coming on your birthday. We really think you’ll love them.”

“Hmmmm….” he thought for a moment, “But I really like the grilled cheese at Wolflies. I don’t think so.”

Now my husband and I were shifting into hard sell mode. We whipped out my lap top and pulled up a U-tube of Hacksaw and Hammer effortlessly spinning basketballs on their fingers and balancing them on their noses. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. It took about 20 seconds and one particularly humorous play in which Flip loses his shirt and shorts and powers down the court in his underwear before Eli was hooked.

“This is the greatest!” Eli shouted. “Please, please, please can we go?”

Mark and I smiled at each other, content with our victory, and assured our youngest that we would get to work planning the event.

It was only then that I realized the error of our ways. Why, when it would have been exponentially less costly and time-consuming to do what Eli wanted, did we feel compelled to push him towards our idea of what his birthday should entail? It’s like as parents we simply can’t ever leave well enough alone. We strive to expose our kids to everything, to expand their horizons on a daily basis, to always encourage them to try new things and experience different opportunities. That’s not a bad thing. But sometimes it feels slightly foolish. Especially when “well enough” would have been a perfectly fine alternative.

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Back to school roller derby

Who will be the next School Supply Roller Derby Queen?

Lace up your skates, moms. It’s time to hit the aisles and go for the gold. If you’re fast and tough, you might actually secure that Justice League lunch box and water bottle your kid’s been pining for all year. Show no mercy. It’s back to school time.

God help me I hate school supply shopping. I hate everything associated with school supply shopping. I hate hordes of people fighting over number 2 pencils, I hate trying to find wide-ruled notebook paper amidst piles and piles of college lined loose leaf. I hate having to buy 4 large glue sticks when they always come 3 to a pack. I hate that despite the fact that every school in the world insists on kids bringing ziploc baggies and disinfectant wipes, they never put that stuff with the school supplies and you have to traipse through the entire store with a million other people to get to the cleaning supply and home storage areas before they run out of the items you need to complete your list.

Argh!!!! It’s awful. It was better this year because I took each boy separately. Trying to navigate two supply lists while maneuvering a shopping cart and corralling two young tykes was nearly impossible last year. At least I wised up a bit.

But the whole process is so utterly angst producing. I’m not even sure why. I love shopping, for almost everything. But this is…just…not fun. I spent over $300 for both boys. That sounds like a lot to me. I mean, that doesn’t even include text books or any real type of learning material.

I saw this one woman, who looked equally distraught, and she said that at her school you can pay extra money and they’ll do your school supply shopping for you. Unfortunately, she had flaked and missed the deadline this year. “Rest assured,” she bemoaned, “that wont happen again.” For a moment I wished our school did that.

But then, in some weird masochistic side of my brain, I heard a voice saying, “but you’d miss such a meaningful mom-son experience if you didn’t go school supply shopping each year.” The fact is, given the choice to abdicate all school related shopping excursions, I probably wouldn’t take it. Because even if I tell myself that instead of the crowded Target aisles, we could go to the water park or the movies or somewhere equally fun and carefree, something else would come up and we’d miss that time together and then it would feel just like every other missed moment I feel guilty and forlorn over.

So, I’ll keep body-checking 12 year-olds to get the last package of yellow highlighters and pushing distracted moms’ carts out of the way to retrieve that one Yoda pencil box that my son simply cannot live without. I will do this year after year after year. Because I’m a mom. And that’s just what we do.

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WWLD?

Breathe...deeply!

I love Lulu Lemon. Not because I’m some peace-loving, zen yogini or anything even close. I just love the style, fit and feel of their clothes. Plus the whole vibe of the store makes me happy. But do you know what I really love most about the place? The bags.

Come on. You love them too. They’re cute. They’re uplifting. They’re the perfect Trader Joe’s reusable grocery bags. But here’s the moment of truth. What do the bags actually say? Don’t look! This is a challenge I’m putting before you. Everything on those bags is thoughtful, philosophical, and inspiring. But I bet, no matter how many tata tamers you have, you can’t come up with 10 phrases that adorn that bag. Too hard? How about five? Three? One?

I wouldn’t ask you to attempt anything I wasn’t willing to try myself. So here goes:

1. Listen intently…to someone?
2. Breathe.
3. Friends are more important than money.
4. Something about sweating every day.
5. Do something every day that scares you.
6. Life is a journey, not a destination. (Okay, I’m stumped and this was the first generic philosophical phrase I could think of. But It could be on the bag.)

I have now retrieved one of the many red and white sacks I possess and am moderately horrified by my performance. I got 4…sort of. “Breathe” is actually “Breathe Deeply.” But I think I deserve at least a half point for my effort. It’s “Listen, listen, listen and then ask strategic questions.” But who would ever remember that? I didn’t get “Love,” which is so blatantly obvious it’s almost embarrassing. I missed “Dance, Sing, Floss and Travel,” “Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment,” “The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.” I could go on. But instead, I’m just going to encourage all of you to step away from your computer and go into your bedroom, closet or the trunk of your car and pick up one of your Lulu bags. Then grab a cup of tea or a mug of French press coffee, sit down and really read what’s on that bag.

It’s kind of nutty to think that a tote from a retail establishment could honestly change your life. But I really think this one can. Because it’s true, “Friends are more important than money,” and “Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.” The bag is like a modern day totem pole, celebrating today’s overwhelming obsession with spiritual enlightenment, and saying to the world and generations to come, “This is who we are. This is what we believe. This is what we are striving towards.”

It’s actually kind of cool to think about this as an emblem of our people. Probably a little kooky too. I doubt that the marketing guru who came up with the bag design considered herself a modern day messenger of current societal standards. But who knows. Maybe Sarah Palin, in one of the upcoming Republican primary debates, will cite Lulu as her favorite political philosopher, just as George W. did in the now infamous 1999 debate when he chose Jesus Christ as his. WWLD?

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Flag football fanatic

Maybe this football thing is getting out of hand

I finally understand how people become psycho sports parents. Because honestly, if my seven-year-old son, Eli’s, football coach doesn’t start playing him more, I’m going to run into the field at the next game, hands poised in throat clenching position, tackle the man, and strangle him within an inch of his life.

Here’s the thing: Eli loves football. He’s not the greatest player. But he’s got talent. And with a little experience and training, he could be really good at this game.

Last season was his first foray into the flag football phenomenon. His team ended the season 0 for 14. But that didn’t discourage him one iota. I hate to admit it, but it bummed me out enormously. I mean this league is totally unfair. Half the kids have been playing football since they were toddling around in diapers, and they’re all grouped together on the winning teams. Then there are the “new” players. These are the kids who’ve already past their primes. They’re six or seven before they pig up a pigskin ellipsoid. At that point, it’s simply too late for them. Throwaway kids we like to call them: like my Eli.

These “new” players get grouped together with the other newbies. They end up on losing teams, with inexperienced coaches who “just want to have fun,” and think that everyone deserves an equal chance to play, regardless of their abilities. That’s a sweet philosophy: until your kid’s the best player on the team and still gets side-lined so that the coach’s ADD daughter can race around the field chasing butterflies when she’s supposed to be snatching opponents’ flags.

Last season was frustrating to be sure. But this season is downright maddening. He’s on another newbie team, with a first time coach and a bunch of players who are seriously lacking in aptitude. Based on the first few practices and games, I’m predicting another perfect streak — of losses that is.

But here’s the issue: This new coach knows half the kids on the team from outside of football and he favors them over the kids he doesn’t know, like Eli. So, not only is Eli on a losing team with a clueless coach, but he’s also not getting a chance to play. (This sounds like an old Henny Youngman routine. “The food was awful, and there wasn’t enough of it.”)

The truth is, I’m upset about this. I want Eli to learn how to play football better. If he sits out half the game, he’s not gonna do that. I mean even if Eli was the worst player on the team, which he certainly is not, when the team is down 42 to nothing, the coach might consider giving Eli a chance to get in there and catch a few passes. Come on, if you’re gonna coach a bad team that’s destined to lose, at least let my kid play for more than a truncated flag football quarter.

I want to complain. I want to speak to the coach on Eli’s behalf. After all, he’s only 7, and he thinks this is fun. This is not fun! Someone needs to advocate for Eli. Just because he’s happy does not mean it’s okay to get benched every other play.

But I don’t want to come off as one of those pushy, competitive parents who thinks the world revolves around their kid. But maybe I am one of those pushy, competitive parents. Well, if I am, then I guess there’s no shame in accepting myself as I am and pushing ahead competitively until my kid gets his fair share of field time.

Hmmm…that wasn’t so hard. Self acceptance is a beautiful thing.

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Warning on a Halloween Batman costume:  ”This cape does not give the wearer the ability to fly.”

Has the whole world gone mad?

Parents today have reached a new low. I’m not kidding. This is utterly psychotic. My youngest, Eli, has been begging me forever to be on a flag football team. So I signed him up with a league in the neighborhood. I’ve heard great things about the organization that runs the league. It was close by. Sure it was adding an extra burden to our already jam-packed after-school schedule. But he seemed so intent on playing that I couldn’t say no.

The first slightly annoying incident occurred when I signed him up. “What day will the practices be on?” I inquired. “That’ll depend on which team he’s on and coach availability,” the impatient voice on the other end of the phone responded. “You’ll find out after the first game. “But what about all of his other activities?” I asked. “I mean, he’s not free every afternoon.” This clearly was an idiotic point to even bring up and i quickly surmised that if you want your kid on a team, you’d better be prepared to make some serious sacrifices. After all, what could be more important than flag football? I mean, come on.

Then about a week before the opening game, I got an email telling me to bring my son’s birth certificate to the first game. I thought it was an odd request and promptly deleted the email and forgot about it. But a few days ago I got another email reminding me that no child will be allowed to play without a valid birth certificate on file. This seemed rather draconian to me. But, since we live in a post “SB1070” world, I figured they needed proof of citizenship in order to be thoroughly legal. But I have come to learn that neither legality nor citizenship figure into this picture. The actual rationale for collecting my six year old son’s birth certificate is that apparently parents lie and try to surreptitiously slip their older children into younger leagues so that they will have some kind of height/weight/talent advantage. Really? What kind of parent would do that?

The fact is that some parent somewhere must have actually tried to sneak their kid into a younger league, right? I mean, just like the ridiculous warnings on baby strollers to “remove child before folding,” or the printed caveat on irons to “never press clothing while being worn,” or the label on my cardboard car sun shield, to “not drive with sun shield in place,” someone somewhere must have committed these inane acts. And there must have been more than a few parents who did this, right? Which brings me back to my initial hypothesis; Parents today have reached a new low.