The correct response was probably not, “Well didja punch them?”

I played on a co-ed soccer team from 1st grade until 5th grade, and though I could identify the three best players on the team, the classification stopped there. The rest of us were just on the team. Whether this was a gender thing, result of my personality (apparently *everyone* but me knows girl politics start in pre-school – OMG “heathers” wasn’t just a movie?), or related to the fact that on that co-ed team, “co-ed” never included more than 2 girls making the comparison like apples to bananas, I just never felt the need to calculate my place in the pecking order. This left me utterly unprepared for the first week of soccer angst that befell Will.

I’ve written about how soccer wasn’t high on his list of activities for the fall, but yeah, I signed him up anyway. Soccer is our insurance against depression, social angst, and lack of clarity. Probably more important than the fact that soccer offers Will an athletic outlet to burn through that boy energy, it also does wonders for his social life. Nothing bonds kids to each other like adversity, and sports teams made up mostly of classmates have one of the higher adversity per minute ratios of the legal options. No one survives a season without having the air knocked out of him with a rogue ball. Walk that off and go back to play? You gain the instant respect of your teammates. 90 minutes of ball-play on an unlighted pitch on a frigid autumn night tests anyone’s constitution. When they win, they win together. When they lose, they lose together. Such is soccer. So when Will sounded anxious about his first practice, trying to talk me out of taking him, I was nervous. What if he is “bookish”? Maybe boys worry about the pecking order in 1st grade? Maybe soccer was better on paper.

I did as any good parent does and spent the 15 minute drive to the field talking through Will’s fears. No, that kindergartener who is the best player of the k-3s would not be on his team. No, he would not be thrown onto the field into a kick-off against other kids. This would be practice where they’d dribble through cones, practice running and passing. He’d learn how to play soccer.

I threw him out onto the field and crossed my fingers.

Sure enough, 90 minutes later he ran off the pitch beaming from ear to ear going on and on about how much fun that practice had been. The following week the report changed to, “Mom! I’m the second best player after only two practices!” Oh, really! It turns out, he just felt he was. He had kicked the ball up into the air over the edge of the field and he and 4 other kids stood around contemplating how to retrieve it until one was coached to just climb down after it. In Will’s book, that was professional soccer, immediately catapulting him to 2nd in the pecking order. And hey, if he feels like #2, I’m going to let him be #2 until he realizes otherwise.

All of this excitement has me making preparations for my end because at this rate, I don’t have long. When I die, make me into a record, here.

I can’t figure out if he’s already realized girls take yoga or if he really is still too cool to care what the other kids think. Either way, I’m quite amused.

An entirely different note, Justin Timberlake would just die if he saw this:

In recognition of the independence of our country, we spent Independence weekend in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor. (The Bro More to those in the know)

Lovely hotel from the outside. The same characterless 5 star generic hotel room on the inside that I’ve stayed in around the world. Yawn. We’ll be camping or lodging in Manitou Springs our next visit.

We made the kids suffer through the 3 hours of ascent to and descent from Pikes Peak on the cog railway. The scenery was breathtaking. The train was a marvel of engineering, using a cog wheel to control the direct (straight up and down!) ascent and descent. And standing at the peak felt like standing on the top of the world. All of this lost on the kids, of course.

We visited the giraffes at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Everyone had a dangerous looking photo taken at Garden of the Gods.

There was plenty of swimming, obligatory fireworks, a thunderstorm (just as exciting to the Northern California crew as the fireworks), and good quality family time.

Etched into our brains after all that quality time with little Taylor Swift (aka Sylvie) is our daughter’s take on one of Taylor’s songs:
You wear short skirts, I wear tshirts;
You’re cheer captain hook, I’m on the bleachers;
dreamin’ bout the day when you wake up and find
anda whatcha lookin for has been here whole time!

You are blonde to meeee!
You are blonde to me!

Here she is filming her music video at the Garden of the Gods.

Hope your 4th was wonderful, too.

At low tide, the tide pools are vast and it is worthwhile to get a map. We also invested in a laminated sheet of local life forms as the kids are old enough to enjoy checking off what they spot.

Although these guys were in our way – you aren’t allowed within 300 feet of one, and they just had to camp where all the star fish usually hang out – we were able to find quite a lot of great sea life.

I learned a few things from the kids. First, Sea Sacs, that bubble-like kelp is fun to squeeze. And, if you stick your finger into a closed sea anemone, it will suck your finger in. If you jab your solid 3-year-old finger into one, it will squirt water out at you. This is great fun for a 3-year-old.

After the tide pools, we headed to a frolic-friendly beach.

Some of us went straight from beach into the bath.

So it went. We set a PR at the half – which isn’t saying all that much at 1:50 – but we were aiming for under 9 minute miles and ended up zipping along a lot more comfortably and faster than anticipated. Comfortable all except my knee which until 13 was manageable, but definitely screaming like a petulant 3 year old who wants candy that she knows she isn’t going to get. At the 14 mile mark feed I was apparently looking pretty pained, and the knee had escalated it’s screaming to the over-tired 3 year old who really just isn’t going to stop until she falls asleep. The PT there pulled me over and stuffed me full of banana while she taped my knee. By this point, things weren’t going so well, and I was considering my options as the course wasn’t getting any flatter and though the tape was sticking, it wasn’t really cutting the pain. I took some advil and somehow ran/walked a few 9+ minute miles to 18 where I was doing more walking than running and sent Doug on his way. We met up at one more feed before parting ways. From 18 to 26.2, I just ran for the cameras. 4:26. The important thing is that I beat the guy in the funny shoes and the 70 year old guy with the bionic knee (no cartilage). I don’t know if I beat the guy with only one leg. It was close.

I’m icing and stretching and hoping to do the Marin Headlands half marathon on 4/3 and perhaps Marin Marathon on 4/25. Gotta keep trying until we get it right.

Oh, and tonight, I remarked when checking Sylvie after a bathroom visit, “Oooh, Sylvie, that was big!” only to have Will run into the bathroom, “Let me see! How big was it mom? Show me with your hands! Was it this big? Bigger than this?”

Something that made me smile: