No It All

Last weekend Nate and I soldiered 10-ish hours in the car, there and back, to a Mustangs tournament in Davis.  It was a lot of I-5.  But it was also probably the best our Mustangs team has played since we joined just over a year ago.  On Saturday we won both games– first one was against the Spurs.  Fortunately Kane and Son weren’t in so we finished it handily,  6-3.  Then we played Davis’ B team and also won 6-2.  Based on my James texts it looks like Nate scored twice in both games, including the infamous “tongue” goal.  That’s the one where Nate scored and Eliot dove into the goal headfirst and said he touched the ball with his tongue.  Mmm, yum?

Then Sunday was the big day against Idaho.  Yeah, the real Idaho.  We checked and there’s no Idaho, California.  Apparently it’s about equidistant from Idaho to Davis and SLO to Davis.  Maybe not really but still.  Since they were traveling so far, we figured they were either going to be really good or there’s no one else to play in Idaho.  Fortunately it was the latter.  We beat them 4-2– again Nate scored two goals and had some pretty assists.

Then five hours later it was the final against Davis’ A team.  We don’t have a great track record with finals that take place half a day from our morning game.  And that bit of wisdom still holds true.  Especially because most of our team also stayed pretty late at the River Cats baseball game the night before.  The wheels came off and we lost the final by a number we’ve conveniently forgotten.  Nate did score our only goal and it was a beauty.  We took second place and the Mustangs were thrilled with their first tournament placement and shiny silver medals.  The boys gave the moms pink and salmon dyed carnations for Mother’s Day.

On Saturday morning as Nate and I finished up breakfast at the hotel I asked him, “So Nate, are we going to make this our best tournament yet?”  Of course referring to the quality of the soccer and how hard they’d play on the pitch.

And he answers, “I guess… maybe?  I mean, there isn’t even a hot tub!”

This is the gold standard by which all tournaments are measured.

Personal hygiene has been a running theme for many years at this point, though we’ve long since stopped with the second parental tooth brushing and I do not fall for the “smell my armpits” schtick.  Armpits have been a “development” opportunity for several years now.  The turning point was definitely before the pandemic.  I remember picking up Nate and Cruz and Finn from school for baseball practice and they steamed up my car.  The windows literally fogged up with their little boy stinkiness.  And that was when we introduced deodorant.

We started with Schmidt’s which smells great, but apparently just causes sweat to run down your sides.  I just got Jacob some Native in coconut and he’s been quite complimentary.  Although last week I mention it and Jake tells me, “Buy me Old Spice.”  Seriously?  Do my children smoke pipes in bathrobes?

We drive across town and get Nate, then drop him at soccer.  I don’t know exactly how it comes up but in a split second the kid says, “ Mom, get me Old Spice.”  Sheesh, their ad dollars are hard at work.

That night I’m watching TV and an Old Spice ad comes on, somehow identifying that I have all the purchasing power.  It’s some kind of Thor-looking guy with long blond locks.  There is another guy hanging onto a pipe by one hand or he will fall to his death.  The Thor guy’s armpit literally starts “shooting” sweat like a hose from under his arm onto the guy with the perilous grip.  It’s dis-gus-ting.  I almost can’t think of something grosser and less likely to get my hard earned money.

And let’s be real.  Those deodorant ads should be for me.  You know what I mean…

Today was a foggy, rainy day which continue to be few and far between.  I haven’t worked on boys’ “clothes management” in awhile.  It’s hard to believe this used to be my second job not so long ago and it reminded me of a conversation from a few months back.

“Hey Nate, come here.  What size are those shorts?”

He’s wearing a pair of gray shorts with a fluorescent orange stripe down each side.  They remind me of days at Happy Hollow and the front lawn on Shasta.  “Come over here and let me look at the tag on those shorts.

Nate comes over and I fish around till I find the tag and it says…. wait for it…. Size 4-5.  Yes, Nate is 11.  He doesn’t believe me but here is irrefutable proof right there around his little waist and the noticeably high hemline.  He’s wearing a pair of shorts he’s had since preschool.

I mean, maybe I can be persuaded they started as clam diggers as the knee-less picture below might have us believe, but still… looks like I’ve been rehired by my old boss, clothes management.

On my last milestone birthday we took a trip to Ashland, Oregon– Home of the Ren Faire.  No, that’s a joke!  It’s not Home of the Ren Faire Jillana.  It’s the home of an amazing little theatre community and famous for their Shakespeare.  Not the same thing but I digress…

So that morning I awake one year wiser in the comfort of a freezing cold RV parked in a Redding campground.  I step outside to find a more spacious bathroom and on my way back to our home-on-wheels, I look up into the morning sky and a low flying bald eagle soars directly over my head.  It passes me quickly and then it’s gone, over the waterway that skirts the campground.

I come running inside to share my good fortune… It’s clearly auspicious.  Amazing.  A birthday miracle!

And the boys have been denying this story ever since.  Eye rolls.  Sure Mom’s.  They love to give me the side-eye and then exchange knowing looks.

A few days ago Jake comes breathlessly inside, telling me about how a hawk has just flown over his head.  “How cool.”  I say enthusiastically.  “Just like the time a bald eagle flew over my head.”

And Jacob laughs, “A hawk actually flew over my head, Mom.”  And he air quotes, “Just like your ‘bald eagle’.”  Literally can’t be said around here without their little fingers curling in mockery.

When Nate was a little blond cherub we would rub noses and he would say, “You so cute and I so cute.”  It was darling.  And I’m sure he’s gotten quite comfortable being the smallest, cutest member of our family.

Then there were these times during the pandemic where the boys would emerge from their beds in the morning and I would take one look at them and know they’d grown.  It wasn’t just the capri pj pants.  I can see it.

Jacob just got measured for his soccer physical and his dad says he’s 5 feet 1 and a half.  Exactly 2 and a half inches shorter than me.  I’m losing ground quickly.

So last year I tell Nate I can’t wait till I’m the smallest, cutest member of our family.  It’s going to be so great.

He just smiles at me.  A slightly concerned twinkle in his eye.

Seventh grade.  Pretty much suits no one.  All the awkwardness and puberty, plus the post-pandemic crazy.  And yet it suits Jake.  He likes seventh grade.  He likes his middle school.  And he’s becoming the best version of himself as most people detour into unrecognizable.

Last week Ms. Mooney calls me.  I’m having a day.  I answer my cell, bracing myself for something.  His stomach had been hurting the night before.

Now we hear a lot about Ms. Mooney, Jacob’s math teacher.  She seems to bring her real-world challenges to the seventh grade classroom regularly.  And Jacob comes home and tells us all about it.  I can certainly appreciate that.  I’ll never forget my MBA stats professor teaching us a problem where the starring role was held by a man selling calculators door-to-door.  He completely lost me when he followed that nonsense with a problem where I was responsible for sizing an oil tanker.  Yeah…  you do not want me or any of these other yahoos in this class sizing your oil tanker.  Absurd.

So after telling me Jacob isn’t in trouble or hurt, she says she has a story she needs to share with me.  It starts with her chasing her son in socks and somehow slipping and slamming her face into her own couch.  Gives herself a concussion, a black eye, and possibly a fractured orbital bone.   Poor Ms. Mooney!  After a day or two, she returns back to the classroom but still isn’t 100%.

She says that in the middle of class she stops and puts her hand to her head and in front of the entire class, Jacob turns around and asks her if she’s OK.  Apparently this is not expected behavior from middle school boys.  She says a couple of teachers had asked how she was doing, but no one with as much genuine concern.

She told me he’s a really special kid.  She called him a rockstar.  She sees him.

I was having a hard, hard day and her call was so unexpected and appreciated.  Thank you Ms. Mooney.  You are a rockstar.

Now that our eight weekends of soccer tournaments are nearing an end, the boys are dreaming of Disneyland.  We’re driving home last weekend and they’re telling me everything they want to do.  I’m not quite as enthusiastic and so the hard sell begins…

James says, “You can go get a massage while we go on rides.”

“A Disney massage?” I ask dubiously.

“What…  You don’t want a massage from Goofy?”

“That doesn’t sound very relaxing.”

And then James starts “Ha har ha harring” in a goofy Goofy impersonation as he kneads imaginary shoulders and drives the car up our winding road.

This is not helping your pitch.

And Nate pipes up with perfect comedic timing, “Mom, his hands are so soft.”

We get home from our epic Christmas in Banff and I kid you not, sleep in our beds for three nights before heading back to the gopher great beyond, otherwise known as Lompoc.  It’s our first All Stars tournament, just down the road from where Elon shoots his rockets into the ocean.  Jake and Nate and I check-in to the Embassy Suites and find sustenance at the local Wingstop, where there are no fewer than two other Jaime’s waiting for wings.

We wake-up bright and early and head back to the skinny, rippling fields for the Legends first test.

Now I haven’t mentioned that for All Stars I’ve signed-up as Team Manager and in addition to Sign-up Geniuses, I’m also officially the Keeper of the Stats.  I kind of love this new job.  Otherwise I’m totally in the moment and have no idea what the score is except whether we’re winning or losing.  Now that I have to write things down, I’ve been promoted to one step higher than chauffeur of the water bottle caddies.

Our first game is against Morro Bay and we win 18-0.  No, that’s not a typo.  Our second game is against 5 Cities and we put it away 7-1.  Our third game against Nipomo is the wake-up call we need.  Nipomo establishes themselves as our leading nemesis.  We eek out a win 5-4 and then forget all about it at our impromptu Embassy Suites hot tub party.

The next morning we’re up against 5 Cities for a second time, winning 7-2.  The finale is against SLO B and ends 11-2.  After 10 goals and 8 assists, we’re just able to wedge Nate’s giant head back into the car for the drive home.

For the record, Lompoc has the worst fields… and the best first place medals.

In mid-December the Raptors head to the Area Q tournament in Lompoc.  It’s exciting because we never expected to be here and we’re out in the world, and it’s the first tournament experience for most of our team.

The fields of Lompoc are gopher nirvana.  There are holes and mounds and beach-sized patches of sand everywhere.  Our lady ref literally falls in a hole during one game, twists her ankle, and disappears for fifteen minutes.  Til she claws her way back to the surface.

We win our first game against 5 Cities.  We win our second game against the Unripe Tomahtoes.  We win our third game against Santa Ynez.  Nate scores eight goals across three games.  Arie scores.  I think Isaac scores.  They give us wrestling-belt sized medals in purple and gold and the first place Unripe Tomahtoes feign happiness that they’re not going to Bakersfield.  The last goal Nate scores was this weird swooping shot from outside the box where the ball rolls down his leg like a ski-ball chute and then plummets down into the net from outer space.  It’s like his boots have been kissed by the Elon gopher gods.

He comes off the field and I’m like, “That was weird.”  And he’s like, “What was that?”  And then Alexis’ dad comes over and asks Nate to sign his jersey.  It was hilarious but Nate didn’t get the joke.

Nate and I arrive home and we’re walking on air.  We open the front door and see Jacob and proudly show him our medals and our pins and he says, “What?  The Raptors won the tournament?”  Nate is technically on three teams– CCU, the Raptors, and the All Stars so I can see why he might get confused.

“Yes!  The Raptors!  We won first place!”

“What?  The Raptors?  Are you sure?”

Bakersfield, here we come.

As I noted in this year’s annual card, there was a day deep in the pandemic when Nate and I were lamenting the loss of an ENTIRE All Stars season.  Serious loss aversion.  We’re in the living room and he says to me, “Mom, my dream is to play in Bakersfield.”  Which, still to this day, sounds like one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard said about Bakersfield.

And the first stop on that road was, of course, our AYSO end of season tournament.

Now I may also have mentioned that the Raptors are a semi-dedicated gaggle of lads on the football pitch.  On more than one occasion James and I wondered if our players were mostly there because their parents had had enough of lounging YouTube Zoom School zombies and signed them up for the first thing that arrived in their inbox.  We ambitiously started the season practicing things like passing to space and movement, quickly adjusting to how to kick the ball.  We worked up to kicking it hard and far and started winning some games.

At the end of the season we entered the tournament with modest ambitions.  Then two or three of the top teams were disqualified for playing their best guys too much and we leaped up the ranks.  We won our first game and then faced off against our baseball coach from past posts.

It’s a very tight game.  We’re tied at the end of the second half and go into overtime.  At this point, we give Nate full permission to just get the ball and score while Cruz holds down the back.  During the first overtime Nate gets the ball and is up against an aggressive opponent who is now one of our All Stars teammates.  He sees an opening and drives toward the goal.

On the far side of the field, our teammate Luke is playing right forward and starts running eagerly toward the goal.  He’s in an offside position, but if you know anything about Nate, it’s clear he’s definitely not going to pass.  Never crosses his mind.  He takes it down and scores in the bottom left corner, while the other sideline, and particularly the coach, are screaming their heads off.

Now the offside rule I’m sure is the topic of countless hours of debate in British pubs across the land where it was most certainly invented by drunks.  In any case, in AYSO, if the kid off side is not in the play and isn’t distracting the defense, then it doesn’t matter.  Meanwhile our linesman is a powerful and respected member of the AYSO elite volunteers corps.  Our sideline of parents starts shouting and griping about the other team’s coach’s shouting and griping.  I take one look at the linesman and tell our side to zip it.  We’re good.  I’m a bit of a hobbyist expert on the power hierarchy of Damon Garcia and Nate’s goal is going to stand.

That’s when it gets heated.  There’s long-distance yelling.  It gets personal.  The Raptors end up winning in overtime, but not before a red card and a personal escort to the parking lot for our previous coach.  It’s high drama.  Nate and I have some good life lesson car talks on the drive home.

Later that day James and Jake head down to the outdoor store to look for Banff gear and overhear someone recounting the entire story as they browse wool socks and ski pants.  Gotta love a small town.  James texts me a gif of Homer Simpson fading backwards into a hedge.

Following our win, we lose our third game to the Unripe Tomatoes (pronounced Tomahtoes) under extreme heat conditions and elatedly accept our second place medals.

Next stop: Lompoc.