Look, Ma, No Hands!

Molly just finished Spring soccer for our town's team. She loved it. Poor girl got my coordination, but she played hard and fearlessly. We had one kid on our team who was just a scoring machine--I think he may have been the only one to score the whole season, UNTIL the last minute of the last game, when Molly scored! It was our only goal of that game. Their team won almost every game they played--only three losses, all to the same team--and simply had a blast. I saw tremendous improvement in all of our players--they got better at defending the goal and playing as a team, better at following the ball and passing. Fun!

Startin' 'Em Young

Here's my little #7--Mickey Mantle Marsh, we call her.

Rebecca's t-ball games are nearly over. She's enjoyed it, but perhaps I have enjoyed it more. Baseball is God's game, I am sure of it. And indoctrinating my children on this early and often is required. Fortunately, I have a partner who shares my love. I take full credit for our shared obsession--he wasn't a baseball fan until we met. He's a full-fledged convert.

In this league, the coach pitches three balls to each batter. If they can't hit the pitched balls, they are allowed to hit off the tee. A good transition, I think. 4-6-year-old t-ball is hilarious. When the ball is hit, the children flock to the ball at once, piling on top of one another, soemtimes even elbowing teammates to get to the ball. This phenomenon was highlighted when a child from the other team hit a foul ball that grazed the side of my head as I sat on the sidelines. As a looked up, unhurt but a little dazed from the impact, I saw a sea of tiny blue people running full-force toward me--a little Avatar moment--trying to capture the ball, which was far behind the bleachers at this point and more than a little out of play. Didn't matter that this was an unplayable ball, that the batter was still at homeplate--those kids were gonna get that ball no matter what! Hilarious.






They are so sweet as they stand in the field, distracted by, well, everything--a bird or plane overhead, a piece of their own hair blowing in the wind, bugs, flowers, a younger sibling or parent moving on the sidelines. One kid on the opposing team last week was running to home and, following the chalklines on the grass, ran in a semicircle before touching the base.



Hopefully, this will lead to a lifetime love of the best game ever played. Otherwise, we'll have to kick her off our team.

Not Yo' Momma's Camping Trip

When Peter and I were first married, living in Connecticut, without any kidlets, we went camping a few times. It was usually a last-minute deal, glance over at each other on a Friday after work: "Wanna go camping?" "Sure, grab the tent." And within 20 minutes, we were on the road, a few things thrown in the cooler, two rolled-up sleeping bags, a tent, and some bug spray. We had a little white Honda, and our gear didn't begin to fill the back seat, much less the trunk.

Camping with children--and older, rounder grown-ups--is a whole different ballgame. One of my goals in traveling with children is to avoid whining/pouting fits. This is not to say that I spoil the children (though I have been known to bribe them on occasion); I just plan accordingly, to avoid unnecessary discomforts that may precipitate whining. This includes comfortable bedding, food choices that please everyone, bathrooms, etc. So camping these days is planned, lists are made, the van is strategically loaded. I research sites, find tent locations we can drive to (no primitive, pack-it-in camping for us), with actual bathrooms close by--no squatting, please, because dribbling on the edge of one's sock will lead to previously mentioned whining.

I wanted to go camping for Mother's Day. Decided on Chickasaw State Park, a litte over an hour away, and, it turns out, lovely. Weather was predicted to be in the low 70s in the daytime and mid-to-upper 50s at night--perfect. What used to be a 20-minute prep time is now a multi-hour prep time. What used to be half of a back seat in a 4-seater is now a trunk full and half of the inside of a mini-van. Now we have air mattresses, air pumps for same, a giant tent, two coolers, two bags of food, garbage bags, a sleeping machine for P, baby wipes, Pull-ups, hand sanitizer, wet wipes for hands and faces, bug spray, sunscreen, mosquito coils, firewood, campfire grill, camp forks, towels, food for carnivores and vegetarians, sippy cups, ice, five sleeping bags, five pillows. Yikes.



All this prep paid off, though. There was minimal whining. No problems with wet socks. It was most assuredly not "mid-to-upper 50s" at night--more like 40 and freezing, but even with multiple children waking up to cluster around "the warm one" (Daddy) while sleeping, we still managed to sleep in the tent all night. We cooked both dinner and breakfast over the campfire, everyone enjoying his/her own food. We made smores. We hiked around the lake, went boating, rode horses, played on a playground, went fishing (this was less pleasureable due to the time of day we chose and the fact that 2-year-olds are not patient enough to go fishing or be contained in a boat for an hour), and had lunch at the park's lovely restaurant, which was like the best Southern Baptist church potluck you've ever been to.














Best Mother's Day ever.

Y'all Come Back Now...

The South is a world all its own. Some aspects of life here challenge me, remind me of why I moved away as soon as I graduated from high school. I hit the ground running, vowing never to return. But you know what they say about saying "never"--and I'm back. Happily. Because I am a native and I am related to more than half of west Tennessee, I am allowed to poke well-intentioned fun at how we talk. I could write a similar post about New England or Iowa, but that would be treading on their sacred ground. It just ain't allowed. Since I now work in a smaller city with people who live in truly rural areas (like "the county" and not any incorporated town), I've had the opportunity to hear some fun phrases that even I, born and bred here in west TN, wasn't previously familiar with. So some--but not all--of these are new to me, but all of them make me smile.

1) Daddy. Southern women refer to their fathers as "daddy" even when they are fully grown women. Not only to his face ("Daddy, will you help me open this jar?"), but also in a conversation when he is not even present. Ex: "My daddy woulda tanned my hide if I'da done that."

2) Swoll up like a tick. I didn't type that wrong, the word is "swoll." It is the present tense and the past tense, all rolled into one. Ex: "As you can see, she's swoll up like a tick." Or "It was so infected, she was swoll up like a tick." If you don't live where ticks live, you may need to know that ticks are insects that live in wooded areas. When they attach to a person's skin, they bite down (painlessly) and suck blood, causing them to puff up to a million times their normal size (exaggeration for effect).

3) Aw, lawsy. This is an expression of disbelief. It is the kindly Christian way of saying "Oh my Lord!" The "law" part is dragged out--laaaaw-zee. Sometimes it is shortened to "law." Ex: "Aw, lawsy, that's a big tick on your neck!" Or "Law! She lost a lotta weight!"

4) Hug your neck. It's not enough just to hug. A good Southerner wants to hug your neck. Not your shoulders or your cheek (this would be called the "kiss-hello program" and is generally not done in the South. If you kiss on the cheek--or worse, both cheeks--as a greeting, this is a dead giveaway that you ain't from these parts.).

5) Bless your heart. If you sugarcoat your criticism of another, it seems less painful. "She just didn't quite get those roots done right, bless her heart." Or "Bless your heart, you just can't seem to find jeans that can hide that rear end, can ya?"

6) Don't blow sunshine up my skirt. Tell me the truth. Don't add "bless your heart" to whatever you're saying--just say it.

7) When God was a boy. It's been done that way forever, and change is bad. Ex: "Well, we been planting seeds in that field since God was a boy."

8) Worn slap out. Very tired.

9) I'm sweatin' like a whore in church. Enough said.

10) This is an exact quote, but there are similar declarations made: "I'm just a hog farmer's daughter, and I know how to make a good cornbread." Substitute rural job associated with hard-working, humble people and recipe/food as needed. It's an attempt to explain that you are pleasantly simple and the world is just too complicated. This type of statement is generally accompanied by shrugging your shoulders and sighing.

If you're from the South, you probably have a million more! This endearing, folksy talk keeps me smilin' when some of those challenges (which may be fodder for a later post) make me think I need to get outta here again. Aw, lawsy, it's gettin' late--I gotta call Daddy and tell him to read my blog...