Soccer Reprise

Just when you think you are all done for the season, soccer is over, time to relax, the day arrives for the dreaded SOCCER PARTY. With four teams, soccer parties can drag on for a long time, trying to squeeze them all in, between everything else that's going on this time of year. Usually, all parties are over by now, but we've had so much rain this year, the season was way into November, thus delaying thoughts of end-of-season celebrations until December. We've decided to cram three events into one weekend. It just happens to be this one, the return of WINTER at hand. brrr. I can't complain, though; it's been incredibly nice, way longer than it should have been this year. Today, we have Connor's and McKenzie's teams combined into one party. Alex's is tomorrow. I'm not doing one for the twins' team; time just got away from us.

We have our parties at the soccer field because the main event for all of our soccer parties is the kids vs. parents game. The kids love to dream about beating their parents in a game of soccer. Once the game is done, we'll give out trophies and have some pizza.

Since I didn't get to my rant on Black Friday, I'll take some time now for my trophy rant. I am a believer that a trophy, or any kind of reward, should be earned, not paid for. Everyone who pays for registration, gets a trophy. I think a complete uniform is enough, but our soccer league hands out trophies like candy. Everybody who gets a uniform, gets a trophy. It's a racket, on the same order as those photographers who charge a fortune to photograph the kids in their soccer uniforms when everyone already has a camera of their own (if you don't, you get a disposable one for ten bucks at the Dollar store; add a few bucks for developing film, and you've still spent tens of dollars less than those 'professional' pic) . Then, at the end of the year, when we have tournaments, the winners get, yes, another trophy (or a medallion). I think all those trophies floating around, de-value the awards for those who excel at what they do.

I used to display all of those things on one big bookshelf like the one on the left. Now, they are in the box on the right. And with five kids in sports, that was a lot of filled shelves. Even things like 'game balls' are meaningless, because everyone gets a game ball, regardless of whether or not they actually deserve one. I've been told by some parents that I do a really good job "manufacturing" a reason to hand out game balls (in baseball). I always have a reason for handing one out to every kid throughout the season, regardless of how far-fetched the justification. As you can see on the bookshelf above, I whittled the kids' trophies down to one shelf. Every one of these trophies was EARNED. They had to work for them. Without the effort, where's the value? These trophies will always have real meaning to the kids. Some kids don't have any on this shelf, yet. They have something to aspire to. As an aside, one of those trophies is for chess. This is my personal favorite because Connor won it in a chess tournament when he was 6 years old. He didn't win it because I let him beat me in chess. He studies the game. He practices all the time (well, not much lately), and, to my shame, he now beats me on a regular basis. He hasn't been in any tournaments for a couple years, but that's going to change in the Spring.

If I don't stop now, this'll get really long. Rant over.

Other news. After the soccer parties, I'll go over and pick up our professional pictures that were taken two weeks ago. I know, what about that rant about 'professional' pictures? Um, well, I have a few excuses. Number one is that it's a fundraiser for the volunteer fire company on Kent Island. They get a cut. Second, it's the onlydecent picture of Vicki and/or me you'll see all year long. Third, it's our annual school picture thing. Fourth, the grandparents expect to get these pictures for Christmas. Finally, I'm saving a couple of months in my annual family calendar for these pictures.

After that, it's off to see Santa. Most of the kids claim they no longer believe in Santa. I have a chart on our white board. It lists the 'Believers', 'non-Believers', and 'wafflers'. The B's and n-B's were evenly split a few weeks ago (with one waffler), but I've noticed a gradual shift as Christmas approaches. As of this morning, all wafflers, and all but one n-B are firmly in the Believer column. Kenzie is the only holdout; everyone else is at least pretending to believe in order to assure stuffed stockings on Christmas morning. Kenzie doesn't care if she just gets a rock. The only reason I want to go see Santa is that he'll be at the 4H Park where they also have model trains running. I love model trains. Not the little, whimpy N or HO scale, but the monster G-scale trains like this one that I had set up a few Christmases ago. We have a large collection these trains but we don't get them out because the kids tend to think they are toys. I had one running around, and over, our pond outside a few years ago, but the kids wouldn't leave it alone and most of the track got all bent up. The bridge is still there, though.