Jackson's crazy soccer pictures

This first picture is him alone with the soccer ball. Of course he picked picture day to wear his shin guards outside of his socks - a soccer no no - and of course neither of his parents noticed. But besides the ridiculous hair this is a pretty good picture of my kid who normally shies away from actually smiling for a camera. He usually either runs away, turns his back or makes a ridiculous face.


And this is his team picture and a perfect example of his normal picture persona. In case you can't tell, that's him in the front row 2nd from the left - even his body posture is whacked.. that's my kid!

More differences about the boys

It came time to carve the pumpkins this year and as is usually the case this falls under my list of to-dos. If there is the slightest craft element to it Brad quickly says - this is ALL you Camela, I couldn't possibly do it.

I've been using those carving templates for years now and often end up doing 2 or more pumpkins one night working late into the night because I couldn't start until the boys went to bed otherwise it would take 5 times as long and there would always be fighting and crying but last year Teddy did a lot of his and I was excited for him to do the whole thing this year.

So I give him the books to flip through so he can pick what he wants and he quickly picks a ghost in a graveyard. Great! Unfortunately I mention that he'll need to go slowly and be careful which spooks him into thinking he'll totally mess it up - and it would be awful for him if he were to create something that wasn't FANTASTIC - he's ultra worried about what others think of him. I was able to talk him into doing some of it and if I hadn't actually waited until Halloween day to carve them I easily could have gotten him to do it and to be happy and proud about it too, but... oh well maybe next year. Here's his choice.


And then there's Jackson. I gave him the books to look through and he finally looked up and said... "I'd rather do an original design." Yeah okay. So we worked back and forth and came up with this which is maybe my favorite pumpkin of all times because it came with sound effects. Whenever Jackson or I would see the pumpkin we would belt out an awful operatic soprano note. Then fall over laughing.

NaBloPoMo - ok so I'm late

I want to get rid of my spurty blogging nature so I thought participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month where you add a blog post each day for the month of November) would help me along with that.... of course then I forgot. oops.

So already I've failed, I figure that takes some of the pressure off, right? Let's consider this little blog post-lette my replacement for yesterday and I'll pretend it happened on the right day. A friend suggested I could change the date and make it seem as though I got it right, but eh - I am what I am.

The tournament is over

Both boys had games tonight at 6:00 two fields apart. It was going to be Jackson's last game no matter what, but if Teddy's team won they would move on to the championship game. Truth be told, I didn't really care about Jackson's game. I'm a bad mom, but the under 9 age group is not yet that fun to watch. There are a few players on the team who have a sense of the game, but mostly they are still running around following the ball or waiting for the ball to come to them and it's frustrating to watch. And Jackson, the most energetic kid in America, spends a lot of time dancing - cuz he can.

Whereas Teddy's under 11 league (I think he makes it into the U11 league by virtue of his birthday, but it could be U12 for all I know - remember I'm a bad mom) is actually competitive. Both teams play soccer well - fairly consistently so it's fun and exciting to watch - not to mention his game actually mattered. So Brad and I split the games and switched at half time.

Jack's team won 3-1. Teddy's team played one of their best games all season but unfortunately lost 1-0. Ted re-aggravated his knee which he first hurt on Friday in his first of 3 in a row games in a hard knee to knee hit and was really bummed by the loss, but oh well. They have a regular season game on Saturday and hopefully they'll be able to shake it off by then.

Camela

My empathetic Teddy

On Saturday Teddy had the first of three soccer games in three days. I arrived at the beginning of the second half and they were losing 0 - 1. I later learned that one of our players, Michael, had inadvertently scored a goal for the other team - he was trying to clear a corner kick but it went off his leg and into the goal. I was thrilled for Michael's sake when our team tied it up and it was even better when we scored again. The game ended with us winning 2 - 1 and you could see Michael was visibly relieved.

So then today I get to Ted's game and Michael's mom comes over to me and says... I just wanted to tell you that after Michael scored the other team's goal yesterday Teddy went over to him and gave him a pat on the back and told him to shake it off. That we all learn from our mistakes, but he shouldn't let it effect him for the rest of the game. She said that Michael told her Teddy is such a nice guy and that was such a nice thing to say to me right then.

When we got home I told Teddy what she'd said and told him how proud I was of him. He said "I was so frustrated with him right then, but I knew that yelling at my own team mate would not serve any good purpose." Clearly I agreed with him. I didn't tell him this, but I was maybe more proud of him for that sentiment than for what he'd said in the first place. There's hope for him yet.

Camela

It started with sleeping in - now that would be a great thing except we were wrong about the time Teddy had to be at the soccer field in order to get pictures taken before his game. It was about 9:50 and we realized he needed to be there at 10:15. It takes about 15 minutes to get there. Teddy was asleep. I went to wake him and I couldn't stop laughing - "sweetie you need to get up, cuz you need to leave in 6 minutes." Brad took him and they made it.

Then it continued with shaving. Well actually I was using a hair removal cream, a new one, and - I can't even describe what a disaster it was - I nearly killed myself cuz everything got so slippery and then it only sort of worked so I'm thinking I now look like a cheetah. And it took way longer than it should have so I was late to Teddy's game. Which was sort of okay since it was happening during a torrential downpour. The kind of rain where the wind is so intense that it shoved the rain through the vent that is about a third of the way down on the big golf umbrella I was under so I was being rained on INSIDE my umbrella.

Teddy's team won, Jackson's team tied then we were home and working on book reports. No construction paper, no poster board - wonderful. Brad volunteers to go and get it - great but I'm a little worried - will he get the right stuff? I ask him to get a variety of poster board and 2 packs of construction paper. I send him to a craft store where I know they'll have a good selection of poster board. It took forever. While he was gone I managed to alienate both children and have them both crying - it was a great time. He gets back and with no poster board. He bought a multi colored pack of I'm guessing 11x17 paper. It's great, just not what I'd finally convinced Teddy he needed as I didn't like his original choice. No problem, this is good since the kids and I needed a break from each other so out I go back into the rain.

Brad is worried that I'm still stressed, but seems ... lost with what to do about it. Maybe as if he expects me to just get over it and is not amused that I'm not.

Hopefully most of our to-do list for this weekend

*2 soccer games on Saturday
*a soccer game and a football game on Sunday
*2 book reports to start and finish
*Buy pumpkins
*Carve pumpkins
*Figure out what the kids are going to be for Halloween and make that happen
*Do laundry – fold and put away (man I hate this one)
*Hang Ted’s new roman shades
*Clean our bedroom - cuz it's a holy disaster
*Clean our bathroom - ditto
*Work on the basement - there's just so much to do
*Put up whatever Halloween decorations we’re going to - I swear this is my favorite holiday but it so often gets pushed by the way side between the sports and school work and just life in general not to mention thinking ahead to what we need to do to host Thanksgiving for a million people and then our Christmas party the following week - that is 43 frickin' days from now (I really shouldn't have just looked at that - but since I'm a glutton for punishment I'll throw in that Thanksgiving is 34 days from today as well.)

Only 4 more hours of work and then I can start.
Camela