Emotional Rollercoaster

Rewind to Friday night. Saddest football game of my football-mom career. It's an all defense game. We enter the half tied at 7 and it was a fight for either side to even make that. Somehow we made the non-intelligent choice of sitting next to Chantilly's student section. Well...let's just say it was a "white out" (everyone wears white to support the team) and along with the white clothes, baby powder is apparently a necessity. Every good play by Chantilly's stellar team, called for a shaking of baby powder like you wouldn't believe. At the end of it all, we sure did smell good.

We were tickled pink by a young friend of Oldest's finding us in the stands and sitting with us. It took half a minute to realize she had his football number plastered on her beautiful face. The Hub took every opportunity to grill her about that and about her intentions with our boy! Youngest, being the ever-popular person he is, had no less than 5 of his own high school friends who came up to the stands to greet and hug him, high fives and "what's up man?" all around. The kid is ridiculously popular at 4.

Chantilly was able to fight for a second touchdown putting us at 13 with the wind stripping us of our field goal for the extra point. With 40 seconds left on the clock, our only job is to hold them back and keep our lead and win the most intense game ever. The fans are on their feet. Thank God I had an ex-high school footballer behind me, telling his girlfriend the play-by-play of what's what. Let's just say the Hub is too engrossed to do that for us. With those puny 40 seconds left, Centreville drives for a touchdown. It's 4th down and they are on no more than the 10 yard line. You know my eyesight is bad, so don't quote me on the yardage. 4th down and it looks to me, my family, the entire student section, all of Centreville, all of Chantilly, that this Centreville guy has failed. We are all celebrating! Louder than loud, Chantilly is literally jumping on top of each other with joy. When wait- what's that? The ref says it's a touchdown. I know that every parent facing a devastating blow would say the ref cheated. But friends, we're all in agreement the refs cheated here. Everyone-I mean everyone (including Centreville) felt like this boy did not make it into the endzone. I take as my evidence the fact that the opposing team was sporting their disappointed loss all over their hung faces. Yet, 2 seconds later, Centreville is elated. The ref's got his hands in the air like his life depends on it and it's a touchdown Centreville. You gotta be kidding me.

So we're going into overtime folks. Each team gets 4 downs to make a touchdown. We are now tied at 13 and Chantilly is on offense. We fight for a touchdown and miss the field goal. We stand at 19. Let me interrupt the playback by amusing you with the sight of all the student body (completely in white remember) rushing from the stands to the end zone fence. It was like a stampede. Remember we were sitting close to them. We quickly held our loved ones close and let them scamper by!

Centreville's turn and they manage to score. They also miss the field goal, so friends, we are tied again at 19. Friends! Think of the emotional exhausting time we were having. Our turn again and we score. So we're at 25. Sadly, we miss the field goal again. And this is from a kicker who hasn't missed all year. It was, in his defense, an extremely windy night. If it was me, the pressure alone would have done me in. It's Centreville's turn, they fight hard for another touchdown and we are tied at 25. What do they do? What would you do, Coach Reader? They go for 2. They are going to push to run the ball in for 2 points rather than risk a field goal and the wind have it's way with them.

Everything lies in the hands of our incredible defense right now-everything. They have played an incredible game (almost the entire game) and have to be exhausted. Yet, they know what's on the line. Sadly, friends, they rush and within inches make the end zone. My stomach dropped out of my feet. Centreville goes crazy, rushes the field. And incredible win for them. They fought for it all night, on their home field, senior night, and coming off a record of 4 wins for the previous 2 seasons combined. This is the first year they have played well in the last three years and they take the lead with the 7-0 record. While we, on the other hand, walk home with our heads hung down, and stand at 6-1. It was the saddest, most ridiculously called, game ever. You know the Hub was looking for one, just one, of those refs after the game. By God's intelligent grace, we didn't see any on the way out.

Oldest came home with the saddest looking face I have ever seen. The Hub and I surrounded him and gave him condolence hugs; told him how proud we were and did our after-the-game ritual of dissecting what went right and wrong. Oldest says they lost the game themselves with those missed field goals. That and those lovely refs. The best part of this tragedy would have to be Oldest's after-game-shake-hands-with-the-other-team thing. He's got tears streaming down his disappointed face and, for the first time ever, he had opposing players surrounding him telling him what an incredible job he and the defense did. That's right, they recognize our ferocity. It was a defining moment for him.

Somehow we managed to arouse on Saturday morning for a new round of games. Youngest played a soccer game like I have never seen before. Sadly, they lost 10-3. I am not sure how in pee wee soccer it can be so easy for them to score goal after goal and so easy for us to just watch it go in...over and over and over... Youngest has developed a kick jump that is out of this world. Every single kick is a performance and involves some sort of dramatic leap in the air and landing twisted around. It's incredible. So, soccer may not be his thing...His team did score three. As Youngest approached us for some water, he was elated at the score. "YES! WE GOT A GOAL!!! But it wasn't me though!" Hilarious.

On to Soccer Chick's game. I almost yanked her out of the game myself for her sullen attitude when put on defense. I mean, so you don't want to play defense...so what? Suck it up and go where the coach tells you. But that, in fact, was not what she did. She pouted, let the ball roll by her and was surrounded by "Soccer Chick! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" The team they played was far, far less than great and we dominated the field the entire time. It was a windy day and we hit no less than 8 attempts and still no goal. I must remind you her team stands at a season of 0-3. They seriously needed to win this game. With Soccer Chick on offense, she fights, literally fights, for a goal. Parents go crazy! Somehow they manage to come back and score again. We score again and friends, we take the win. Superb! Favorite part of this game would have to be when Soccer Chick ran over, literally ran over, an opposing player near my sideline. "That's right Soccer Chick! You run her over if you have to!", says her wild mother. And the poor child stands up...and she's small. Half the size of Soccer Chick. She looks over at me, thinking what kind of mom would tell her daughter that? So I mouth, "oh! sorry..." to her and try to save face. In my defense, I had no idea the child was small.

On to Baseball Chick's game. She hit three singles and had a great game from what I caught of it, that being only about 15 minutes near the end. All in all, it was a busy, terrific weekend for games. Except for that devastating loss on Friday night. I'm still shaking my head. This Friday, is our biggest rival. Westfields. This is a game to win. They HAVE to win this game to reclaim their dignity and ranking. It's a must. It's a home game and while we won't be bringing baby powder, we will be plenty fired up.

Youngest antic to set your week off right: In children's church yesterday the lesson was on becoming a better giver. After a thorough explanation of what we can do to be more giving (i.e. our time, our hugs, our help, our things, etc) I worked with Youngest to create his "Giving Chart". We came up with some good ideas: "Give my shirt to my neighbor friend."
"Um...okay."
I say to Youngest, "What about your mouth? Can you be a bigger giver with your mouth?" I'm thinking give away compliments and kind words, right?
A puzzled look is stricken on his face as he replies matter of factly, "I think I'd like to keep my mouth mom."