Why

So I have a confession to make, I am not at all athletic.  I didn't do any sports in high school, I don't do anything now.  I think about it, a lot.  My sister runs/walks and does 5k's 10k's and even half marathons and marathons.  I did have a really brief burst of fitness right after I graduated from college, before I got married and had kids.  It wasn't bad, the exercise, but then I had kids and a husband and a job and 2 dogs ...  Somehow life just got in the way.  So what did I do, tried to raise athletic kids.  We started when they were in preschool.  Gymnastics, ballet,  t-ball (personally I thought t-ball was the most fun to watch).  As they got older it got more serious, football, basketball, coach pitch, soccer, jazz, tap, more gymnastics, figure skating, cross country, track.  At some point it overcame me. 

Don't get me wrong, I love that I have sporting children, but being a sports mom is an all consuming lifestyle.  It has sucked the life out of my life.  So here I sit, overweight and out of shape.  I am a middleaged fountain of information about college recruitment, how to buy good running shoes, where the best orthopedic doc in the area is and where to go for physical therapy, how to fit figure skates, where to get a good deal on a competition dress, how to find a skating partner (or not as the case may be).  I have been a team mom, coach, board member, volunteer.  I have donated food, time, participated in fund raisers (candles, cookies, coupon books, wrapping paper, cart-wheel a thons), bought coaches gifts, gone to banquets, traveled with the team, cheered, cried, screamed.  You name it, I have done it.  Want to know how to deal with Spondiololythesis?  Done that, bed rest by the way.  How do you handle a broken sole on a cleat 2 weeks before the end of the football season?  Duct tape.  Best friend got the last small uniform at Cross Country leaving only mediums which your child looks ridiculous in?  Safety pins.  I even understand how skating is judged and scored.

So here is where sports mom insanity has brought me, I have 2 children who are 18 (well he will be 19 on Sunday) and 16.   My oldest son is playing football at a NCAA division 1AA college and is hoping to earn some scholarship money this year.  He was red shirted last season as a freshman, but has made really good progress with the team.  This is the same kid who was so little on his first football team that he had to be taped into the uniform- there were none small enough for him.  My 16 year old daughter is a runner and figure skater.  She has been to the US Junior Championships 3 times as a pairs skater but through a fairly traumatic series of events lost her partner (to another skater/coach, not anything traumatic to him).  This has opened a whole new area of insane sports mom life -partner search.  When she says "there's this boy" it has a whole different meaning.   She is also a runner and that keeps us all busy.  Fortunately she got her driver's license this year so I can take on more tutoring clients to help pay for all the sports bills!

So why write about it?  To document my own insanity I guess.  Maybe to reassure myself that I am not really insane.   Hopefully some young mother will read it and find a better path.  Then again has my path been so awful?  At the end of the day would I do it again?  You betcha.