Let the Crazy Begin

It's 3 pm on Labor Day and I have to get the grill going. Not for some Labor Day grill out. I need to cook dinner. 

At 3 pm. 

See there's Lazy Labor Day soccer at 4 pm and I need to go there to hopefully meet a few of Noah's U10 house league players for a few minutes, at least, before Noah gets to his U10 travel league practice which starts at 4:30. But I'm not cooking for Noah; I'm grilling so Matthew can eat something before his practice starts at 5:30. That's 20-minutes away from our house and Noah's practice doesn't end til 5:45. So while I'm watching Noah practice, Matthew can eat dinner of sorts. And while Stacy's watching Matthew practice, Noah can eat.  

Welcome to the fall season. 

This is what September looks like -- and that doesn't include games that Matthew hopes to referee, or Matthew's cross-country practice.

As I plugged dates into Google calendars I was feeling a bit over-scheduled myself. But to borrow a phrase from the cancer-patient vocabulary, this is the new normal for kids schedules -- and ours  is relatively sane compared to some kids who are playing two sports at the same time, or on two different travel teams or have more than two kids playing sports.

Right about now is when everyone without kids shakes their head disapprovingly and tells us we're overbooking our kids. "We never had that crazy a schedule when you were growing up." "

Maybe not. Back before there was such a thing as a Soccer Mom, I started playing soccer at age 12 or 13 only because our new Middle School math teacher came over from Greece and started a Middle School team. By the time I was in high school, I was playing year-round -- fall with high school, spring with a nascent AYSO club (go Ardsley Arrows!) and winter indoors at the high school on the gym floors in a game that was to indoor soccer what arena football is to traditional football. Yet I was still playing catch-up to the towns that started their kids playing soccer at age 8. Now most kids start at age 5 or 6 -- some even earlier. 

Is it too young? I don't think so. It's the very beginning of a process that introduces kids to the game and sets them on the path that takes them through rec leagues, town travel, and beyond if they want to do it. I would have loved to have the opportunity to have played more soccer at an early age. But that's me. Not every kid is like that -- I'm not sure that both my kids are like that. But as long as they like the game -- as long as they get excited to put on their uniform and play, we'll keep driving them to the fields. 

So here we stand on the precipice of a fall season. Two months. Two travel teams. Two rec teams. Two tournaments. Four (maybe 5) states. 94 different soccer appointments. That's a lot of time at soccer fields -- and in cars. 

As we slowly inch up the track to the top of the crest, with all the expected emotions - anticipation, excitement, dread, fear, panic -- I thought why not take this mountain of soccer memories and capture it somewhere.  If nothing else, five years from now, when we're arguing about whether we played that tournament in Epping, NH or Hartford, CT, we'll be able to easily settle the bet. But maybe, too, in preserving our daily soccer memories, we'll also learn a little something too. 

Let the games begin.

--Michael