Our Sporting Life

Kisae had her soccer debut last weekend. I'll have to post photos later, but of course she was cute in her uniform and baggy soccer shorts. She was a little nervous -- she's among the youngest on her team and in her little division - but she played. She didn't cry, as some of her teammates did, just seemed a bit unnerved by the bigger, more aggressive kids.

Her big interest in playing soccer is that the rest of us would sit and watch her. I guess after 18 months of watching Ben's games (soccer, flag football and now baseball), she figured she was due. "Mommy watch me, Daddy watch me, Ben watch me. Whole fambely!"

Trouble is the whole "fambely" couldn't make her debut because Ben's baseball game was at the exact same time, on another field, in another part of the city. Ugh. So this past weekend, we thought we were good to go. Ben's game was moved to Friday night, so Saturday morning would be all Kisae. Except just as we were about to leave the house Saturday, we got a call. Game canceled, thanks to a broken water pipe under the field. Argh. We will try again in another week.

In the meantime, I ponder this: Why do some mothers put giant (and I do mean giant) floppy bows in their daughters' hair for soccer games? It always looks to me like they are desperately saying, "She's still feminine! She's still a girl!" Maybe that's not fair. Maybe they always put big floppy bows in their daughter's hair. But I don't get why it's a soccer accessory.

And this is why sometimes being a working mom is just no fun: I was stuck at work late on Friday and missed half of Ben's baseball game. And it was in that first half that my kid hit his first-ever home run! He told me about it later, how he had smacked the ball down the right field line, how it rolled to the fence and how he rounded all the bases.

Jim was there, Kisae was there. He was sorry I missed it but hardly devasted (in fact, and not surprisingly, he was a bit cocky). Still, I wish I'd seen that hit.