What I’ve Learned This Week

This is what we call beating a dead horse.

Remember the meanie that Annie was dealing with?

I talked to her father yesterday.  It is worth noting that her father is also the coach of this team.

Call me crazy, but I think the coach should be setting a higher standard for behavior, starting with himself and his child.  But this is not the case.

Phone call.

Me: Annie and [your daughter] are not getting along. I know that Annie is sensitive, but she’s been crying before every practice and game for the past 2 weeks.  I’ve tried to help her find ways to avoid or change the situation, but it is not working out.  [Your daughter] is calling her names and telling her to shut up.  I cannot keep sending her back to an environment like that, so unless something changes, we will no longer be playing.

Him: I’m really sorry to hear that she doesn’t like [this sport] anymore.  I hate that.

Me:  It is not [the sport].  She still loves [the sport].

Him: I hate that.  I really want every kid to love the game, and I hope that she will get over that and change her mind someday.

Me: Again, this is not about the game.  She loves the game, but she does not like to be bullied.

Him: I was afraid this would happen. 

{here is where I foolishly thought he was starting to see my point}

Him: About 3 weeks ago she was crying in practice.  The problem is that she is younger and smaller than the other girls, and she can’t keep up.

Me: She is the same age as [two teammates] and she is older than [two other girls].  She has always been small, and she has always excelled at [this sport].  Her age and her size are not the problem here. 

Him: Well I do hate to hear that.  I want every kid to love [the sport].  If there is anything I can do in the future…

Me: I keep telling you, she loves the game.  She does not love being called names.  This is not a game issue, this is a personality issue.  She is getting nowhere trying to be nice to [your daughter] and now I am getting no where trying to be civil to you.  We will try again with a different coach in the fall.

-click-

Is it just me, or was he really, really obtuse there?  Like, if burying your head in the sand were an Olympic Sport, he would be Apolo Ohno.   Or if ignoring a parent’s complaint was an amusement park, he would be Disney World.  Or if blaming other people for your child’s mistakes was an evil movie franchise, he would be Twilight. 

What the heck, dude?

I hung up the phone so angry I was shaking…and then I cried.  I always cry when I’m angry, and I hate that.  It seems so weak.  Because actually, I wasn’t feeling weak at all.  I was feeling like “Hey buddy, I know where you are going to be in 20 minutes, and I just might show up and whap you over the head with a frying pan.  Don’t mess with my kid.”

For the record, I did not do this.

I did, however, talk to 2 other parents with daughters on that team, and both are having the same issue.  In fact, one of the mothers ran a practice last week when he wasn’t there, and she said the girl was mean to everyone, her included. 

My beef isn’t that our kids don’t get along.  Believe me, as much as I hate it, I know that will happen.  And I know Annie will have to toughen up.  But at the same time, when you are in a position of authority over young children - i.e. coaching a team of 7/8 year old girls - I think you need to take responsibility for their behavior, and not allow name calling or bullying behavior.  Especially when it is your own child. 

I’m thinking of filing a complaint with the board.  Is that out of line?

So in summary, this week I learned that I don’t want my girls to be on a winning team.  Sometimes, a losing team is a good thing.  A team that knows that winning isn’t everything, and that having fun and being kind are more important than any scoreboard.  I want my girls to keep proper perspective about what matters in life.

Here’s a hint, coach man – it isn’t that undefeated record.

We’ve played with ‘the best’ – now we’re ready for the rest.

To see what others have learned, hop over to my friend Julie’s place!

The one where I go all Mom-crazy

There comes a time in every child’s life when they have to deal with a meanie. A bully. An unpleasant, difficult peer.

An 8-year-old jerkface, if you will.

Apparently for Annie, that time is now.

I. am. not. happy.

I’m kind of a warrior when it comes to my kids.  I can’t help it – I come by this naturally. In high school, our principal referred to my mom as ‘The Big Guns’ on more than one occasion.  Because if anyone so much as looked at one of her babies sideways, she’d have their head on a platter.

You might think that this would be embarrassing to a teenager.  I, however, was not embarrassed.  It felt fantastic to know that my mom had my back.  Also, I had more than one teacher with documented mental illness that seriously needed to find a new career path, so if my mom had to be the one to point that out, so be it.

[I hope that my daughters will appreciate this about me as well, since there's not a chance I'll stop any time soon.]

So enter the little punk that needs a good spanking girl who does not have nice manners. 

Honestly, Annie is a Pollyanna.  And overly dramatic. And often sensitive.

I take full responsibility for the Pollyanna thing. The melodrama comes from her father. Sensitivity? Not a clue.

So she’s never had to deal with a  mean girl before, and she’s ill-equipped.  She’s probably also more easily hurt than your average 7 year old who hasn’t been kicked in the gut before.

<sigh>

It doesn’t help that Annie is off-the-charts small for her age.  And this girl is more than a head taller, and bigger, and intimidating.  And when Annie tries to talk to her, the girl tells her she’s stupid.  She tells her to shut up.  She tells her she doesn’t care about her loose tooth. 

She tells her she doesn’t like her.

I’d like to tell the little girl exactly how I feel about her.  But that would be wrong.  And I’m supposed to be an adult.  And in theory, I should be ‘mature’ and ‘above that kind of behavior.’

I’m working on it.

In the meantime, I have no idea how to deal with this.  I’m torn between:

1. Helping Annie understand that you encounter mean people in life and you have to pray for them and find a way to toughen up and work through it
2. Leaving the extra-curricular activity where we encounter said girl, because Annie shouldn’t have to be anyone’s verbal punching bag in a supposedly fun activity
3. Telling the girl’s parents that they suck and their child is a mean, mean, mean little brat

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You don’t even need to tell me.

But I still want to.

And frankly, if I don’t get a favorable response from them when I address my concerns, I might just stoop that low.

Hopelessly Flawed – I warned you up front.

Coordination is for people with no imagination

little MissMatched socks

For us it all started a few years ago with a set of socks and a set of gloves that Annie received as a birthday present.  Notice I said ‘set’ and not ‘pair’?  That’s because Little MissMatched sells them in sets of 3, for mix-and-match fun.  How cute is that?  Not to mention practical.  Any mother of preschool aged children knows the drama that comes from trying to help them get dressed.  As Catie used to tell me, she wants to do it her OWN self.  And getting the kids to pick out something that actually matches?  Fahgettaboutit.  Enter MissMatched, and her lovely mixed up designs, and you have a recipe for success.  Mismatched has never looked so good!

MissMatched tag

I’m a big fan of all of their products (check out these jammies and these tights and this bedding. Fun and funky, right?)  So imagine my delight when I saw that they now carry Sporty Socks!  Have I mentioned that I coach Annie’s soccer team?  She’s quite the little soccer player, aggressive and fearless and what she lacks in speedy long legs she makes up for in spunky short ones.  Her one complaint about soccer?  The socks drive her crazy.  This is her fourth season playing, and every time it’s the same complaint.  The shin guards are fine, but the socks are too tight and too itchy and she hates them.  (I don’t let her use that word of course)  I’ve looked for suitable replacements but never found one that suited her.  Until now. 

Check out these babies:

Not only are they super soft and pleasing to even the most sensitive of feet, but they are almost too cute for words.  The socks we got were from the Fabulous collection:

I should have asked for a business card to hand out, because I know I referred at least a dozen parents to the website last weekend.  I’ve had these cuties just waiting to be blogged about for two whole weeks and it’s been killing me!  Unfortunately the rainy weather has been killing our soccer time too, so the wait was on.  When we finally caught a break this weekend we hit the field running – the kids to play ball, and Mommy to snap pictures.  (Just as any good blogger would do, right?)

Another added bonus?  They make your child very easy to spot in a crowd:

I spy funky footwear

So please, check out the banner link below and visit the Little MissMatched website.  If you have a little athlete we highly recommend the sporty socks!  We own gloves, jammies, regular socks, underpants, and some accessories too, and everything is top-notch.  And they have socks and flip-flops for boys, too!  Baby gifts, home decor, duds for Mom – you name it.  If you want something kooky, zany, or just plain fabulous, they have what you need!

Excuses, excuses

Oh blogosphere, how I’ve missed you so.

A few weeks ago we were leaving for a Disney vacation, and then I sort of dropped off the face of the Internet.  I know.  I’m sorry.  It’s been crazy crazier than usual.  I will update properly on our vacation, pictures and all, but first here are the obligatory explanations for my prolonged absence.

One new-to-us experience we had on this vacation was ‘having a child get sick in Disney World.’  I don’t really want to repeat that one.  I don’t know exactly how it happened, but long story short, Lilly was infected with e coli.  She (and I) spent the second half of the vacation pretty much tied to the resort room, and she was hospitalized the week we got home.  Not fun. 

And then came Easter.  And after she was released, my parents went away for a few days, which left me and my unruly brood in charge of our website (total plug for Garden Party Teas).  I love, love, LOVE working with the site, but it’s not easy to do with the amount of ‘help’ I get from my 2 & 3 year old daughters.  Anyway, we’ve been very busy lately – it’s Tea Party season, don’t you know?  I’m grateful for our customers, but it does keep us on our toes!

After all of that died down, I came back to blog.  I had very good intentions.  Unfortunately, though, a spammer sidetracked me.  I had to weed through and delete literally thousands of spam comments.  When I finally got that tedious task off of my plate, I checked my email, only to discover that every single comment also generated an email notificaion, so yet again I had to weed through them all.  UGH!  It was such a long, annoying process that by the time I finished (several days later), I had no desire to blog!

Then we had a crazy soccer week (I’m the coach of my daughters’ rockin’ U-6 team), busy school week (I volunteer there on a regular basis – so fun!), yada, yada, yada.  And now my poor Mom has hurt her back and is unable to do much of anything but lie in pain.  When it rains it pours I suppose!

So there you have it, the list of excuses reasons why I was unable to join the land of the living for a while.  But never fear, I’m back baby, with lots to talk about, lots to show you, and a few really awesome giveaways in the works!  Woo-hoo!