Sour Grapes

Bonehead and I try very hard to be good parents. We try to keep the fast food to a minimum, and do our best to try to make sure meal times are as healthy as possible. We make sure homework is done, and our children are clean- unless you catch Smoochie immediately after a meal. In which case you will be able to recreate the meal by looking at his sleeve because he always uses it as a napkin.

We also try to ensure there is physical activity beyond the thumb maneuvering of the Nintendo DS and the watching of the “Sim-Sims”. Bonehead and I encourage Smoochie to play soccer and participate in wrestling, and will genuinely support any sport he should choose to participate in. Right now, he is in soccer, with the season set to end at the end of this month.

As the parent of a soccer kid- wait, I think that makes me the dreaded “soccer mom”. As a soccer mom, at the beginning of the season you are supposed to sign up for your snack day. One game a season, you provide the snacks for your child’s soccer team. Last Saturday happened to be our turn.

We also had to drive to the In-Laws last Saturday, and decided to save time by leaving directly after the game, which was scheduled for 10am. It is not easy to prepare for a trip to Grandma’s. Given the later game time, I was impressed with our ability to get everything ready for the day at Grandma’s, have the snacks prepared and ready to go for the soccer game, and actually make it to the field on time as well. I was slamming some awesome mom love on myself for rocking and rolling that morning, let me tell you.

We showed up at the soccer fields toting 5 pounds of grapes (all plucked off the vine and washed and in 3 different giant zip locks for the ease of grabbing by the boys), a king size box of chocolate chip granola bars, and ample juice boxes. I even had time to stop at McDonalds for that cup of coffee I didn’t have time to get at home. We were pushing Critter in his jogging stroller, walking with a cute happy Smoochie, on time, and anticipating the day at Grandma’s (I had visions of a naptime dancing in my head). Life was good.

Right up until we couldn’t seem to find Smoochie’s team. We were looking and looking at the fields, trying to find the matching black white and red uniforms, and totally didn’t find a match. And then we saw one of Smoochie’s teammates walking past us with some friends.

Bonehead asked him if he knew where the team was playing.

What?

I’m sorry, what was that?

The team already played.

The game was at 8, not 10.

Not only had we missed the game entirely, it was Smoochie’s snack week as well. The kids had had to play without a snack or water OR their coveted after game granola bars. My head suddenly had visions of the other parents on the team muttering things like “cheap bastards” and “how irresponsible CAN you be?” I completely wanted to go home and crawl under the blankets and call it a day.

Not only do I feel bad, but I foresee yet another therapy appointment in our son’s future. I used to think the warping of a young mind took effort. Apparently it is not that hard to do at all.

As an after note, we do get to redeem ourselves tomorrow. Unless they’re going to stone us when we get there.