Weekend Update

I had to change this week's blog title just a smidgen. We had a little, teeny tiny birthday party that was big enough to exhaust the best of us, thrown in the middle of all our planned sports events. It was a marathon weekend to say the least. If ever I wanted to know what I was made of, I figured it out this weekend. Pure stamina and staying power. I survived over 10 kids ages 4-10 in a backyard moonbounce. Red, flushed faces, smelly, sweaty bodies and pure kid-fun. Now if you can handle that, you're with me!

Let's back it up a bit. Oldest had to sit out of this week's game. Sore as he was about that predicament, he was able to stand on the sidelines as his team took West Potomac easily. Another victory for Chantilly. 3-0 is our season standing right now and friends, we're looking good for a playoff spot. Wouldn't it be divine if this team took a state championship this year? A team that many thought would not be able to carry it's own and this would be a training year at best. Turns out, they are a pretty good squad. They seem to work well together and the whole team has a lot of heart. As the Hub would say, football is won and lost depending on the state of mind of the players.

This week is Homecoming. Oldest is determined to be cleared by the doctor and to be out on that field representing his team. While several young ladies are requesting to wear his Homecoming Jersey, Oldest has taken his sweet time making a decision. "You want to wear it Rach?" Now, heart aflutter, friends. He is a mama's boy indeed. I have managed to play it cool and offer a "sure, if you want me to." in response.

Soccer Chick has been terribly under the weather these past few days. Even that couldn't stop her from being ready for her soccer game. Or so she thought. Poor thing, 2 minutes into the game, she makes an attempt, the ball hits the goal post and bounces off and a coughing spell hits her. She can't stop coughing and starts throwing up on the field. That's it, friends. No more soccer for her this morning. I, meanwhile, am at Youngest's soccer game. When I arrive to Soccer Chick's location, she is rested and "ready" to get back in the game. Coach won't let her (smart man) so she sits on the side, seriously not happy. Good news is the girls played hard and fought for a comeback to tie the game at 2-2. Overall record now stands at 0-1-1.

Baseball Chick had her game, pre-birthday party festivities. She's not quite jelled to this team yet. She has some acquaintances but you can see that she's not got any "buds" on there. She struck out twice. (The pitching machine is set too fast, says the Hub). And on her birthday none the less. She did hit a single and because she's so fast, there was no way 1st baseman couldn't have touched her. Overall, she seemed disinterested. Could it be? Friends, could we be parting with our love of baseball. Oh, gasp! I'll be so heartbroken...

Youngest. Ah, Youngest. What a package of fun and entertainment. I must confessed I set up a bribe for him. After last week's dramatic hand gestures and foot-shuffling on the field. I informed him that if he didn't play in the game he wouldn't be able to participate in the snack afterwards. I realize that this is like telling a fish he can't have water, but friends, I had to make it plain. The boy responds to food. Hey, it seems logical to me. If you don't play, what would you need a snack for? I know, my conscious felt a tiny bit bad about the setup...but not really.

Needless to say Youngest did his thing. He's fast, just like Baseball Chick. He dominated the ball and did score a goal. Because he is such a package of entertainment there were still hand gestures and facial expressions through the entire event. Now, that's what's funny. This kid was running and playing his heart out and yet, he has these hysterical looks on his face when the ball would get kicked away, or when his team scored a goal. I know they don't keep track in pee-wee soccer, but for the record, my record, his team won 6-2. There is another player on his team about 6 inches taller and I must confess, this young man scored about 4 of the 6 goals. However, Youngest did great. My favorite moment of the game: Coach crouches down to address his 3 on 3 squad with a game plan before a kickoff. Youngest, in all his seriousness, reaches over and places a hand on the man's shoulder. As if to say, "yeah, Coach. I'm in. Let's do this!" Even his serious moments are hysterical. And needless to say, Youngest got every bit of that snack. He certainly earned it.

Character

Chantilly has done it again, friends. I'm so excited at the way this season is shaping up. They now stand at 3-0, having played very well at every one of those games. Last night's game was a "no-show" for us as we attended back to school night for Soccer and Baseball Chick. We were fortunate enough to come home and listen to the 4th quarter through the awesome website http://www.gamedaymagazine.com/. Far away friends, it's worth the membership fee for a couple days pass to listen, occasionally watch and definitely read what Chantilly is doing over there.

Chantilly took West Potomac for a 35-16 ride. Nicely done boys. This morning Oldest filled me in on his moment. Let me just tell you, the fact that he doesn't read my blog allows me to share with you the details of his pre-game pep talk. You already know Oldest is out, for thankfully, and hopefully, just one game...last night's game. As he sat in the locker room with the team preparing their minds for the victory, he started to cry. Now, lest you think he is "soft" (he would be quick to prove to you he's not), football just does something to a teenage boy. He is definitely moved by football. As a coach saw him sitting there, unable to play this game, he suggested that Oldest address the team.

Let me tell you, Oldest is not an "address" anyone type of guy. He has had a lifelong struggle with stuttering and has worked extra hard to overcome it. As you may know, even if you can control your weakness, doesn't mean you aren't self-conscious about it. So...public speaking is pretty much out. In this case, Oldest was so moved, he did it. Here's the speech as he relayed it to me this morning:

"Team, I've worked hard for an entire year to get to this point. I've worked harder than probably anyone in here. And tonight I can not play. I have worked for this moment and I didn't know going into last week's game that I would get hurt. I want you all to win tonight. I want you to play hard. One play can change your life."

Are your eyes still dry? I kept my composure this morning. It was difficult, but he thinks I'm a straight up sap, so I did my best not to get mushy. Friends, you have to appreciate his quiet nature to know this was true character. Leadership skills emerge from the passion of a heart. Something he never thought he could do, he did beautifully. This, guys, is the heart of football.

Moving on to this weekend...birthday party for Baseball Chick. Can we all handle her and 8 other screaming 8 year olds? If I post on Monday then you'll have your answer. Pre-birthday party is a rack of sports games.

Youngest is beyond ready...

Happy News

First, friends and loved ones of mine, I want to share with you this incredibly tender picture from game night Friday. Whoever captured this photo...I love you. The view from the stands was moving as a fellow lineman/good friend came up to Oldest to express his mutual frustration and disappointment at the recent events leaving Oldest on the sidelines and out for at least this game. Now, I thought the view from the stands was moving. This picture that Oldest shared with me captures the moment exceptionally well. This, I believe, is why boys play football. It's all about the team. I asked Oldest what he said to him at that moment and it went something like "I love you man. We are now playing for Oldest." And as I told you, friends, the momentum of the game changed after this. Chantilly played with tremendous heart and stopped Langley from scoring at the 1 yard line. 1 Yard Line! Unthinkable. Those boys fought hard for that win and they pulled it out beautifully.

Meanwhile, back at the Copelands...Oldest has been struggling to come out of shock at his injury and come to terms with what this means for his football season. We got the Orthopedic appointment yesterday afternoon and let me now tell you...I love the Orthopedic Surgeon. He walked in, looked at the x-rays, looked at Oldest and said "you're one of us. Let's get you back in the game fast." A fellow Chantilly-man, we loved him immediately. And his next news just put the icing on the cake. "It's not broken, son. You have a chipped bone. You have intense pain right now and lots of swelling but you get no cast today." I thought Oldest would do backflips on the table right then and there. "You're looking at 7-10 days wearing an ankle brace and then you're back in action." Now, we are definitely getting ready to do backflips. He hooked Oldest up with the footbrace, told him to stay on the crutches until he's comfortable walking on his braced-up foot and sent us on our way.

Can I tell you that God is really something? Oldest knows that God was trying to get his 17-year old-I-know-pretty-much-everything- attention. As this young man sat on that table I think he started to get it. God grabbed his attention where it would have the most affect and then in God's graciousness made what could have been a difficult circumstances not so major after all. Isn't that just the way God is. He's so gracious. He will allow us to mess up all over the place and then He will grab out attention when need be. He speaks our language, whatever that language might be. Yet, His desire is not to punish us. It's just to wake us up and get us back on track. Oldest is singing for serious joy right now. One of his biggest upsets with this was not being able to play in the Homecoming game. Exactly, 14 days from now. Friends, it's looking like he will be back in action two days before Homecoming. God knows our heart; our disappointments; our frustrations and He loves us enough to only let us get so far before waking us up. It's looking like in this case Oldest may miss one game. One single game. We went from 4-6 weeks possible to one single game. "Are you ready for some football!!!"

Weekend Sports Update

We tried to recover from the devastating blow on Friday night to our man Oldest. He spent the weekend trying to come to grips with facing his circumstances. Let's just say he's not happy.

Soccer Chick kicked off her soccer season by traveling to Warrenton to be whipped up on by some big girls. 3-0 for a season opener! I will say that Soccer Chick had about 5 pretty nice attempts, one of which went just to the right of the goal post. Another was a sure thing, kicked from pretty far back with a lot of power, going straight into the goal right above the goalie's head, no way she could block it. At the last possible moment she put her hands up, more to shield her face than to block the ball and the ball hit her hands and flew over the back of the goal. Soccer Chick was amazed, as were the rest of us, we thought she had that one. She was a bit frustrated with with performance of her team, particularly one lovely child that kicked the ball directly toward their goal. Let's just say I bit my tongue as much as possible and showered that girl with lovely thoughts.

Baseball Chick had her first practice of the season and although I was on travel with Soccer Chick, the Hub reports that Miss Baseball Chick showed off. She hit the ball farther and harder than her teammates. Now, I dare not get into bragging mode so I'll just say she is going to have a great season. She's super excited about it. Me too...welcome back two hour long games...I've missed you!

Youngest. Ah, Youngest. The boy is a natural born box of entertainment. The Hub found himself getting a little worked up...okay, a lot worked up...behind this boy's first soccer game. Thankfully the coach's wife is a co-worker of the Hub's and was able to playfully tell him to calm himself down. I'm sure it was more like: "haha. But seriously though. Calm down!" It was his first game after all. He started out gung-ho, fired up. Scored a goal in the other team's goal. To which the Hub expressed his "calm" explanation and apparently Youngest throws his hands up in the air and launches an: "Ahh, C'mon!" with his best New Yawker accent possible. For the remainder of the game he putted around, not chasing the ball, in "shy" mode. I'm anxious to see what Game 2 brings.

All in all, and emotionally exhausting weekend. We're all so upset for Oldest and his terrific season being interrupted. And I have decided that Soccer Chick does not listen to me from the sidelines. I am confident that my directions are clear and correct, yet she doesn't heed them a bit. After Saturday's game I have decided I won't be spending this season getting all worked up and being ignored. Of course, I could have volunteered to coach if I wanted to shout directions, but that wasn't what I had in mind. I just want her to do what I say. Who can't understand that? I'll continue to cheer for her, but I'm thinking I'm done with the coaching tips. I'm going to play mellow mama from now on. I'll let you know how that goes.

Man Down

Friends, most intense high school game of my life tonight. "Intense" is not even covering the level of excitement and energy going on over in Chantilly this evening. Chantilly vs. Langley and folks, we knew walking up, these Langley boys were built big and looked good. Chantilly scored first and for essentially the remainder of the first half of the game, Langley was on their tail. Langley's got a good quarterback. One play of the game oldest nearly had a perfect quarterback sack. He missed the quarterback by inches. He did cause him to fumble the ball, even though those biased refs didn't give it to Chantilly. The Hub was flipping out that Oldest missed it. Now that, guys, would have been an amazing play for him. You could see from the stands he almost had it. He roughed him up a bit and the boy did stumble and drop the ball but if only he had got him good.

My favorite worst play (for us) of the game: Chantilly scores, on a kickoff return Langley fella runs a 93 yard straight touchdown. It was choreographed so beautifully if i didn't know better I would swear Chantilly handed it to him on a silver platter; my son being one of those servers.

Bad news is we go into the half trailing to ole' Langley. They definitely came out to win. Chantilly has a lot of heart, as was demonstrated tonight. They fought hard for this game. 3rd quarter, Oldest goes down. Friends, gasp! He is helped off the field limping and I can see he is hurt badly. He is visibly crying and so angry that he is out of the game. The passion in this boy's heart is amazing. He told me this morning he is married to football right now, and at that moment this evening I could totally see his investment.

Sure enough, friends, he was out the remainder of the game. I would venture to say there is something magical about a football team. As I watched my hurt son sit on the sidelines working with the athletic trainers, struggling to stand, and finally resigning himself to sitting out the remainder of the game, systematically, all of his teammates came over and gave him words of encouragement, hits on the shoulder pads and head, hugs, tears no doubt. An especially emotional hug from a friend lasted a minute or longer. If the boy could have been micro phoned for sound I am confident I would have been in tears. This, to me, would be why boys play football.

The Hub went down to talk to the athletic trainer to find out my boy was hit from behind. An illegal hit. Sorry to my brother-in-law (who hails from Langley) but I know that Langley boy was trying to take my boy down! The refs apparently didn't see it. Oldest says he was standing still and the rather large dude tried to do a chop block (I assume you football-ers out there will know what that means). Instead of going for the thighs he hit his ankle. His ankle for goodness sakes! All we could see from the sidelines was the play in motion and Oldest jump in the air looking as if he was in excruciating pain and down he went.

Later on, they wrapped his ankle, told the Hub he needed to go to the emergency room after the game and with any luck he would only miss a few games. The athletic trainer thinks perhaps a torn tendon, possibly a fracture. Folks, I'm not holding on to luck. I'm praying it's essentially nothing. Just bruised. Pray with me, won't you? Football is everything to Oldest right now. He wants the x-rays done now so he can be at practice tomorrow ready for whatever rehab he needs. If he can't play, this is not a good thing.

Something about the second half lit a fire under those boys. I would like to think it was the emotions these boys felt behind their defensive tackle being taken out. That could be part of it, at least. All I know is these boys changed the entire game plan second half. There were several other injuries tonight. Thankfully those boys were able to walk off the field. Nevertheless, these boys played with everything they had the remainder of the game. The score went from 14-21 at the half to tied at 35 at the end of the game. Overtime rule: each team gets 4 plays at the 10 yard line. Chantilly scored a beautiful touchdown and the extra point was good. Putting us at 42. The excitement escalates and these boys are fired up. Langley's turn...friends, Chantilly showed off. They held these boys preventing them from getting a touchdown. Final score, and the crowd goes crazy, 42-35. An intense game, to say the least.

Meanwhile, the Hub and Oldest are on their way to the emergency. We're hoping and praying that the injury is minor.

Fall Sports Weekend

Well friends, the weekend has essentially arrived and we are in full swing with these kids and their sports. Don't think you hear a pinch of resentment there. I love it! I love that each of them is so athletic and so involved and invested in each of their activities. Truthfully, I think I love the being the "sports mama" better. I think that's what really lights my fire. Getting to act like a complete idiot on the sidelines without consequence is just so...gratifying!

Oldest has the 2nd game of the season tonight. Naturally, excited about that. Before that however, we get to do the mad family dash. Baseball Chick has her first baseball practice. May I digress for a moment? Why did she get placed on a team that practices on Wednesday nights when I specifically indicated on her registration that this is the one day she could NOT practice. And as it would be, she is also placed on a team with kids from an entirely different school. How to arrange a carpool for her to attend practice has boggled my mind. I'm still hopeful this situation is going to get resolved in our favor. I'll keep you posted on that. I know you don't want to read about my frustration with baseball all season long. Hopefully they will do us both a favor and work this thing out!

So the mad dash will be this evening getting Baseball Chick to that practice on the wrong team and then straight over to the football field for Friday Night Lights! And then Saturday arrives...Thankfully Baseball Chick does not have a game this week. Somehow things were aligned in my favor on this one. However, Soccer Chick will travel to Warrenton (good grief!) for her first game of the season. At the same time, in another part of the universe Youngest will have his first soccer game of his life. Can I tell you how ecstatic this boy is? I handed him the uniform this morning. He's number 6 in a red jersey, red shorts and fire red socks. Boy, you couldn't have peeled that smile of his face. He says he will be making 5 goals tomorrow. I'll let you know. Not sure which way the Hub and I will go on Saturday; we'll have to split up for sure since both soccer games occur at the same time. Oh to be so torn. To go to Youngest very first game or the oh-so-exciting Soccer Chick's games. Hmmm...what's a girl to do? I'll keep you posted!

Big, Big Game!

Game 1, season opener folks. Chantilly vs. South County. Awesome game. Let me just tell you how thrilling it is to sit in the stands and see your kid do his thing and do it well. Oldest has been playing football since the ripe old age of 7. That's 10 years he has under his belt. Several of those years were spent dressed out, keeping the bench toasty. Many games we have attended the fella didn't even break a sweat. No need for an after-game shower. Yet, he continued to be faithful to his game; attending every practice, attending every game. Friends, I think this season is what he's been saving for. Many, many years of him toasting that bench and us doing the same on the sidelines.

Last night, my boy played wonderfully. It was especially heart-warming to hear his name over the loudspeakers multiple times. In multiples, friends! Four years of high school games and we haven't heard anything resembling "Copeland". But last night, I swear we got at least 8 shout outs. He was doing big things, getting his big, overgrown butt in those plays. The boy did great! We were so excited for him, more excited for us as we revel in our vicarious living. The highlight of the evening, besides hearing our boy being announced over and over, was the Chantilly fan with the most spirit ever. This would be a charming young man whom Oldest has known since his early football days. No longer playing football, but is the class president for the class of 2011, this guy comes to the game shirtless and painted purple. That's right folks, all however many pounds of him...painted purple. And for each touchdown he did a courtesy flag run up and down the stands...shirtless...painted purple. It was beautiful. Belly jiggling, pants sagging, flag toting, up and down the walkway in front of us. Seeing as how Chantilly scored three mighty touchdowns, this was great entertainment. Final score Chantilly 28, South County 13. Good way to start folks, good way to start!

Miss Soccer Chick has gotten herself in full swing. Let me not leave her out of things. Her preparation for a mighty season is definitely underway. Coach looks good so far. Seems he may not give me much ammunition for blogging. Last night as I clapped for the other team, Soccer chick says "mom, if this was soccer you would not be supporting the other team." She's more than a little right. Something about her playing soccer brings out the fierce competitor in me. This weekend will be the last sports-free weekend. Games begin the following weekend folks!