Saturdays Are the Worst! So are Sports!

I loathe Saturdays.  They are usually filled with yard work, house work, lots of sports, and lots of driving.  One Saturday alone, I put 63 miles on my van just from driving boys to their games.  And that was before driving 45 minutes away to Marcus's late night lacrosse game.  That was when basketball season and lacrosse overlapped, a dark time in my life I'd like to forget.  It was a logistical nightmare getting Marcus, Ethan, and Landon to all their games.  But I did it with almost no carpooling options because that only complicated things since we often had to go directly from one game to the next.  Have I whined enough yet?  Well, I left out the part about Randy working on Saturdays which means I'm a one-man show.  Last Saturday I sent a text to Randy that said, "I don't know how your root canals are going but I'd say there's a 99.9% chance your day is going better than mine."
Thankfully we are almost finished with lacrosse season.  Hallelujah!  Marcus has had three practices a week and Ethan's had two practices for almost three months now.  Because of the limited amount of playing fields, their practices are never at the same day/time/location.  It is a constant struggle keeping the schedule straight.  I think this season I only dropped off Ethan at the wrong location once.  Unfortunately it was a game, not a practice!

 Ethan is loving lacrosse this season.  He has been honored as MVP by the opposing team four different times so he's getting a lot of bling on his helmet with all his honor stickers.  I love that the other team recognizes Ethan is a good player, and a good sport.  He's not afraid to play aggressively despite being the smallest player and he scores most of the team's goals.  It's awesome hearing all the other parents cheering on your own kid!  Sadly, I don't know any of their kids, but oh well.  I've got enough to keep track of anyway.

 Marcus has had a great lacrosse season this year too.  He's one of the bigger players and plays "middie" so he's in charge of getting the ball down the field and either scoring or passing it to a player like Ethan so they can score.  Marcus is super fast so they have one play specifically designed for him to get the ball and score.  It's pretty cool.  But it wasn't so cool when he was at a tournament {I wasn't there because I had to get 2 other boys to their games} and got a phone call from Marcus telling me he'd been ejected from the game.  WHAT?!  I freaked out, listened to what he had to say, and then talked to another parent to confirm what really went down.  Long story short is another player was giving Marcus a rough time the whole game, trash talking and targeting him.  He intentionally cross-checked Marcus hard enough to send Marcus down hard on his read end, which was illegal, so Marcus stood up, picked up the kid who was bigger than him, and threw him down on the ground.  Then it was mass chaos as the kid {aka punk} threw down his gloves and came after Marcus.  Refs were blowing their whistles and restraining the punk, coaches were yelling, and both boys were ejected from the game. I'm glad I wasn't there because I would've had to be restrained too.  Don't mess with Mama Bear!

Marcus also played on a rec basketball team.  I wasn't always able to see all of his games but man, he's got hops.  He jumps so high and seems to float in the air long enough to get a shot off without anyone getting in his way.  His team lost in the last game of the play-offs which I think was more upsetting to me than it was to Marcus.  Since he'll be starting high school next year {Crazy!!}, his basketball days are over except for church ball.

Landon played basketball {while Marcus and Ethan were also playing lacrosse and Marcus was playing rec basketball so there were some Saturdays where I went to 4 different games} and he's awesome because he's the littlest guy on the team and the highest scoring player.  He usually averaged 8 shots per game and that's a lot for being the smallest player.

 

Now Landon's playing spring soccer and it's extra fun for me {insert sarcastic emoji} as I sit in the sometimes pouring rain while holding a squirming Henry who can't crawl around on the wet, muddy grass.

Pouring rain, heavy baby, big umbrella, and I had to stand because my chair was soaking went from the previous lacrosse game.  So fun!  Thankfully I spent half the game in the car.

 And now track season has started up.  This means Marcus and Ethan stay after school four days a week for practices and every Thursday I spend about 4 hours watching their track meets.  Marcus runs in the hurdles which is the very first event and the 200M which is the second to last event with the 100M and Ethan's two events in between.  Basically every other event has one of my boys in it so it's an all day affair that involves Henry missing his nap and pulling Landon out of school early.  But  I love cheering Marcus and Bean on.  It's the waiting in between races that is torture.  Marcus has been training with a running coach and has knocked some serious time off his 100M and currently runs it in 11:6 seconds, fast enough to compete with the varsity high school team.  It's awesome!

See how no one else is even close to this kid?  He broke the school record in hurdles last year and has only gotten faster

Finishing the 100M strong

Ethan is airborne as he runs anchor in the medley relay

Disclaimer:  I'm bragging way too much in this post but it's my blog so I can do that.  Plus, I've got some seriously athletic boys and it continues to astound me.  Randy and I are not athletic.  In fact, I've never even played on a team ever in my life.  Ever.  I just go running.  Slowly.  So to have boys that coaches actually want on their team, and rely on to pull out a win in the final seconds, is pretty cool.  Now, if only I could get them to practice the piano I'd have it made!