Did You Poop Me Out?
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008I had a dream date weekend with my two dreamy daughters. Mommy was in Los Angeles for work, and the girls and I attended not one… not two… but three soccer games. Then we ate dinner in front of the TV in the loft (we never do that) and watched the Broncos beat the Chargers 39-38. We also went to a birthday party and went swimming. All in one weekend. Now that’s a Daddy’s Girls Dream Date Weekend. Yeah baby.
About the soccer games… We first went to Sidney’s game. As a previous blog (”Betrayal Of A Pink Princess”) has described, I am the Assistant Coach on Sidney’s under 6 soccer team. Sidney’s team won 9-4, and the result would have been much worse if we had not voluntarily played a player short (3 on 4) for much of the second half. Her team won their first game 12-0. Ouch. Sidney has scored seven goals in her first two games. That’s my girl! Because I have unbridled, disreputable and overly competitive pride in this, I try to mask it by acting like it doesn’t matter who wins or loses or scores the goals. (Right! As if anybody who has ever played soccer with me or watched me coach my high school boys team would believe this…) Actually, that’s true, what’s important is to play your hardest, play with class and skill and sportsmanship, and accept the results. And by accept the results, I mean of course that you should humbly congratulate everyone on a good game, and then get in your car and either (a) internally gloat and relive the glory that was your dominant athletic victory, or (b) feel an immature sense of anger and frustration that you did not destroy and dominate your opponent. So, as you see, based on my competitive nature regarding soccer, it is best that I’m the assistant coach rather than the head coach of a team of five year old girls. Until…
I received an email from a friend whose 3 year old girl (and one of Riley’s best friends) was enrolled on a soccer team that had no coach. The team was not going to get to play their inaugural season unless a coach could be found within a week and a half. Riley loves soccer (she practices with Sidney’s under 6 team!) and frankly does not get herself as much exercise as Sidney naturally does. So, you guessed it… I’m the new head coach of the Real Colorado Cubbies 3 year old girls’ team, the Unicorns! (The girls themselves named the team the Unicorns, which I think shows great promise — would you want to play defense on a unicorn that put her head down to watch the ball and dribbled it straight toward you? I didn’t think so. So the name itself intimidates teams to give up on playing defense against us. Way to go, girls!)
Needless to say, my new head coaching position presents some challenges for a former competitive soccer player. Challenge #1: Don’t be an asshole. It’s okay to be an asshole who talks nice but really wants to destroy your team when playing with other adult men. In fact, it is considered a rather admirable trait in such circles. But with little girls just learning the game, it’s all about the love of the game and fun. So I have to monitor that.
Challenge #2: Teach the girls the basics of the game. At the first practice, we did a whole bunch of games and drills featuring things like imaginary ice cream factories. We did these things because the Real Colorado coaches’ manual implored us to follow their regimen. But then, at the end of the practice, I tried to run a little fun scrimmage. The girls looked at me like I was speaking Martian. They didn’t get it at all, except Riley, who scored a bunch of goals because she practices with Sidney’s big girl team and knows what to do. But for the other girls, I suddenly realized this was their first time playing soccer, and they don’t go to pro soccer games with their daddies, and they didn’t even know they were supposed to try to score on the goal! So next practice, we’re throwing out the Real Colorado coaches’ manual for the first part of practice, and just learning the core concept of the game, which is to try to kick the ball into one net as a team and keep it out of another net. And prepare yourself for glorious dominant victory over others down the line. Oh sorry, not that last part. Everybody wins.
On another note, here is the funniest thing I have heard all week:
Mommy has been talking to the girls about childbirth. I can’t remember why. The girls learned that Sidney was a natural birth and Riley was a C-Section. They are fascinated by this. They talk about it all the time, and ask questions like, “What did they use to cut you open to take Riley out?” (My interjected answer: A bread knife. Mommy corrected that one.)
(Here is a gross thing I just remembered, on that note. Squeamish readers should skip this part, but I find it fascinating: I have seen my wife’s guts. Her actual guts. I swear to God. Even though I’m agnostic. When Riley was born, I was in there with them, and I saw them cut my wife open and take Riley out. I am such a pansy, I have no idea how I kept from fainting when I saw this. But I was there and holding Janette’s hand after they rushed her in for an emergency C-section when Riley suddenly got wrapped around in the umbilical cord and was dangerously close to choking. Janette was incredibly scared and incredibly strong through all this, and somehow I managed to hang in there too. And it created an opportunity I will never forget: While they sewed Janette back up, I spent the first 30 minutes of Riley’s life with her, just the two of us, me holding her little tiny hand. And I will never forget how Riley was remarkably calm for that whole thirty minutes, after experiencing something indescribably traumatic.)
Short version of the above stories: All my girls are ass-kickers.
Anyway, back from that long and gory tangent, my girls have recently been fascinated about the childbirth process and the fact that they were born in different ways. They want to see Mommy’s C-section scar all the time. They want to know if they were in Mommy’s tummy with the food. The questions go on and on. They realize that they understand how Riley came out when they cut Mommy’s tummy open, but they don’t really get how Sidney got out through natural childbirth. They ask: Where’s the place that Sidney came out? Mommy tries to explain to them in several different ways. I won’t go into detail on these explanations in a rare moment of blogging restraint on my part. However, I will get to the greatest moment in this conversation, as a deeply contemplative and curious Sidney sat back and tried to comprehend the biological details her mother was explaining to her, and opened her wide eyes in an “a-ha!” moment, and breathlessly and triumphantly asked her mother:
“Did you poop me out?”
Back to the biological drawing board.