How far to push our kids???

I have two girls, Tyler is 9 nipping on 10 and Maggie will be 8 in 2 weeks. Anyhow they play soccer, in a relatively competitive soccer league. During soccer season my life looks a little like this: Skills training (Maggie) Monday, Tuesday/Thursday Soccer practice for Tyler, Friday Soccer practice for Maggie and then games on Saturday and Sunday. Gah! Let's say again, my girls are YOUNG. But guess what? This is typical for *most* of my friends.

I feel very very lucky because my husband has been able to coach both of the girls, and he still coaches our youngest daughter. Tyler is now on a team where she has a fantastic coach, and she loves loves loves it. That being said, I spend A LOT of time on the sidelines, cheering, reminding myself that these girls are young, and trying to just have fun. About two years ago, I realized that I was getting too invested in my girls success on the field. I was getting frustrated when my 8 year old was not "pressuring the ball enough", or being aggressive enough. I had a little heart to heart with myself and said, hello, these are your wonderful children and they should just have fun! In order to keep and maintain my calm I picked up my camera and starting shooting the game, basically watching it through my camera lens.

Yet, I still find myself in this soccer "family". I have realized that people are SUPER serious about it. They strategize about what path their 10 year old children will follow in order to be as successful as possible. There are politics involved in this sport. Serious maneuvering. It makes me sad. I have friends who will ditch me in a minute if someone more "important" in the soccer community walks up. And I have realized that people can talk soccer all.day.long, and I have realized that is NOT me. But, am I going to make my daughter's fail? I would hope not.

There is such guilt involved in not doing every.single.thing you can for your child yet, I also have this other feeling of seriously wanting them to succeed on their own! My parents (and I think most parents in that era) took more of a if you want to do X go ahead, but I do not remember ever having discussions with them about how I played, what I could have done better, what I did well, etc. There is just such pressure for your kid to be the best, for your kid to be happy, for your kid to be a star at age 10, and I just wonder to too much is too much?

For me, watching the game through my camera lens has helped me to see it for what it is, a game. Yes, I want my children to feel good about how they played, but the bottom line is this, will they get a college scholarship from it? Will they love the game in 2 years? Will they forever treasure their weekends being filled up with soccer? Bah. I don't know, but I am trying my best to just cheer them on, and congratulate them on a job well done!

Whew it has been soooo long

Now it is 2012, and I will become a blogger again. I vow to blog, I do love to blog, so here goes.

The power of the mighty muffin.

So, my girls are tracked out. They are in year round school, so they have 9 weeks in school and 3 weeks out of school. But, during December the school closes for 2 weeks (Christmas and New Years) then when everyone else goes back, my sweet ladies start their 3 week break. What does this mean? It means that for 2 weeks my kids get along great, they love each other, they have Christmas to look forward to, the elf on the shelf (named Sugarplum) is still reporting to Santa, etc so they are NICE to each other.

Then track out begins and somehow they turn into sister haters about 90 percent of the time. They can play nicely together for about 22 minutes out of every hour. I tell them to separate, but they must be together and I haven't figured out why, maybe to torture each other? Last night in the car they were listening to possibly the worst song in the world, I whip my hair back and forth, and they were singing it loudly. For those of you NOT familiar with this song, just sing the title about 300 times, add maybe 10 other words, and you have the entire song. They knew how much I loathe this song (as well as my ice ice baby loving husband) so they sang it, in unison, louder than necessary. As my husband's head was about to explode I looked lovingly at him and said "oh look they are bonding together for the purpose of irritating us, it is so sweet!".

Another issue with track out is the grocery store. Let's call it like it is, I hate the grocery store on a good day, on a day when I have a list, a menu, and I am alone in my food thoughts so I can sit, stare and compare prices. So, going to the grocery store with my 88 percent fighting girls is VERY unappealing. Instead of going to the store, I convinced myself that I am trying to save money and use the stuff we already have in the pantry. In reality, I really do throw too much food away, and I am tired of just being uninspired with food. So, I decided not to go to the store until we were desperate. For me that means out of almond milk, and tea and for my husband that means out of beer. For the girls being out of YoNanas is a crisis (if you are not familiar with them, they are half of a banana dipped in dark chocolate). So I have been working on the pantry......

Muffin time. I have been making muffins, I have gone muffin crazy. It all started when my sweet 9 year old (Tyler) asked one of her besties if "her Mom made breakfast for her every morning", and her friend replied, Yes, of course she does. Uh-oh. I had not been making breakfast for my girls during track out, they have been getting their own. You know, cereal, a bagel, or cereal and then there is cereal. I just kind of thought that I needed a break! Anyhow, the Mama guilt seeped through my pours while I was sleeping and I decided to clean out the pantry, save money and give my oh so neglected daughters breakfast.

So far I have made chocolate chip, french toast and peanut butter with nutella. The chocolate were very good but kind of like eating a cookie for breakfast. The french toast were seriously not great, but the kids liked them. The peanut butter with nutella were simply fabulous! And, my youngest daughter, Maggie, got to help me make them, but we will leave that for another blog. For now, I will keep working on the pantry........