Geoff and Soccer

It has been a very long week, I'm in dire need of a nap. But I'm baking loaf after loaf of banana bread. Geoff loves bananas, sometimes. If I take him to the market, he'll insist we buy bananas. He'll eat one or two, and then go off them all together and I'm saddled with a good six or so from the bunch. In the past I've been glowered at for buying just two bananas when I've torn them off the bunches. I cannot imagine what old pensioner ladies do in the same position. Do they also get stuck baking banana bread before the fruit flies invade?

Anyway -- the banana bread is always lovely and wonderful and tasty. I've started adding baking soda to the recipe that I had been given, and it makes a difference in the size of the loaf and quality of the taste. The quickbread recipe that I used for so long didn't call for it, but I found it's essential.

And that's about all my Martha Stewartesque chat for the day.

The week was long and arduous, as I mentioned. Geoff's week at school was hit or miss. And I did speak too soon in my last entry when I theorized Geoff was starting to get the hang of it. Yes and no. Good day here, bad day there. He's getting evaluated for special ed.

I would put money on a diagnosis of PDD-NOS because he's sometimes difficult, not always, and thus categorically indefinable. PDD-NOS is the catch all -- "something's wrong with your kid" kind of thing. He isn't ADHD/ADD, perhaps a touch. Not an Aspbergers kid, I don't think... not sure what else to categorize him in. I'll keep you posted.

He started soccer this morning, which was a load of fun. The kindergarten and first grade are together, and he, as well as 80% of the other kids on his team, had absolutely no idea WHAT was going on.

First, they did a half hour of drills, throwing in an out of bounds ball, trapping with feet, kicking and not using hands.

He'd pick up the ball, tuck it under his arm and start calling plays. "Okay. 25, 88, Molly Red to 12. Go!" and then he'd drop and kick the ball.

When he was doing the overhead throw thing from the sidelines, he insisted on spiking the ball instead of throwing it as far as he could ahead of him.

Then they all played a game of sorts. 1/2 field length and utter chaos. His team is the khaki colored shirts and they were up against the gold team. Geoff was told to play defense at one point, and so he ran up to some gold team members and started shoving them out of the way. I yanked him off the field and told him in soccer you can't just run up to people and shove them.

"But I'm on DEFENSE mom!" he tells me. I explain the difference between soccer defense and football defense. He says "I don't like soccer." After a cup of water and a little more thinking and playing and standing facing the wrong direction when the ball got kicked his way, he finally decided it was okay. He told the coach he'd see him next week. All drenched in sweat and exhausted, he gives soccer the thumbs up, kinda.

But you can tell what sport he knows more about. We're a football family. American Football. Soccer never crosses the airwaves at our place. We simply aren't into it. Doug rarely if ever played it growing up, in western PA it wasn't hip. They play night football there, and the little kids are brought up early on the gridiron in Steeler Nation. I played soccer growing up. I remember wearing this hideous gold colored league T-shirt that didn't fit me, and I had feathered hair brushed back and shoulder length.

My soccer experiences were alright. I was never athletic, and would whine about being out in the cold on a Sunday morning with girls I wasn't even friends with for the most part. I got put in the fullback position. I was (and still am) rather big, so other teams would see me and be all "Oh, look at that huge big girl at fullback, it'll be tough getting past her!" But they soon found out getting past me was not that challenging.

If I was able to get the ball to myself, and have a moment of time, I could kick that bitch clear all the way to the other goal. And oftentimes I did. The long kick was my expertise, my talent. Blocking, kicking, getting into a defensive press and holding my ground to kick the ball out with a little 78lb hoochie girl wearing perfume and being all super strong and athletic was NOT my forte.

I remember I had a coach whose daughter was the star player on the team. I also remember her snubbing me and not wanting to talk or walk with me one day after a game. I thought to myself "She is gorgeous, but she is a certifiable bitch" and I looked at the backs of her thighs as she walked away with her cute little body and her cute little friends, and she had the hairiest monkey thighs I'd ever seen on a girl.

That made me laugh. And that image sticks with me today when I think of jockish athletic middle school girls.

I hated playing soccer.

Boys on the other hand, I loved watching the boys play soccer. It was faster, harder, rougher, more exciting. My friend Jen had a thing for all the soccer boys, and our middle school science teacher was the high school varsity team's coach. He asked her if she would want to be scorekeeper and do the stats book at the games, and she readily agreed.

And brought me with.

We were in 9th grade maybe, and all the boys on the team were juniors or seniors. She flirted relentlessly, I wallflower sat in the front seat of the smelly yellow school bus that took us all over Long Island to away games. The boys were all nice and polite. I would often serve as ball-girl, running on the sidelines with a whistle and calling balls out of bounds. I'd get the balls and chuck them back to the players so they could throw them in, like Geoff did today only with more enthusiasm, accuracy and effort.

Jen and I stuck with this pasttime for a while, and I remember going to a game without her once where I was the statskeeper, sitting at the desk with the time guy and the head ref. I'm all of like 15 years old.

One of the opposing players came running up to me after the game calling my name. His name was Kevin and he was in my grade (10th) but had made the senior varsity squad. His family moved to another town, and we were at his school.

He was incredibly happy to see me, and we talked for quite a while, sitting in the grass outside of the school while my school's players got all cleaned up in the locker room. He told me that he hated it there, and that all the people, boys and girls, were horrifically unfriendly to him and unaccepting of him as a new kid in town. He asked about all the people he knew to see how they were, no one ever called him, so he felt abandoned on both the new school front and the old friend front.

He asked for my phone number and wanted to know if I'd go out with him, even though he was in another school district.

I was flabbergasted. No one had ever asked me out, and here is this super athletic beautiful and wonderful kid asking me if I'd be prejudice against dating outside the HUFSD highschool I was in.

I told him I'd love to go out and asked him to call me that night. He called me twice, but never asked me out and never called again.

Not sure if he finally found someone at the school he was at worth dating. Finally got accepted into the new flock, but... whatever. I can't even remember his last name.

In short. My experiences with soccer were better as an observer from the sides. I know for a fact I'm not cut out to be a 'soccer mom' even though I'm a registered Republican living in a whitecrust town in northeast MA. I drive a cool truck and not a mini van. Heh.

So we'll see how Geoff does with this whole soccer thing. He had trouble getting instructions in his head. Doug kept muttering "Get your head in the game, boy!" under his breath as Geoff played with his shin guards and faced the sidelines with a bored look on his face as the herd of kids came his way. I don't know that Geoff can get his head in the game. But he kicks almost as good as I did once upon a time. If he can get his head together, perhaps he'll do alright.