The Weekend That Felt Like a Week

This past weekend was N’s “Big Soccer Tournament” over two hours from home. In the past, his team has never ever done well at soccer tournaments and sometimes hasn’t even gotten to play at all. Therefore, when I saw that after two games on Saturday, he’d have one on Sunday morning and IF they made it to the championship game it would be played in the late afternoon, well I was sure we’d be home by mid-afternoon. I’d have time for weekly grocery shopping and a few of the chores that didn’t get done because of being gone on Saturday. I was sure, but I was wrong.

N’s team kicked butt.

They won their first game on Saturday morning easily, 4-0. We parents rejoiced, remembering last year and how happy we were when our team score any goals at all and didn’t lose by double digits.

After lunch, they won their second game, 5-0! We rejoiced again, but with less enthusiasm and growing doubts about whether we’d all get to go home at a decent hour on Sunday or if we would be getting our boys home, on a school night, late in the evening.

We sighed as the coach called us together for a quick parents’ meeting and told us it was almost a lock that we would be playing in the championship. Our only hope (bad parents that we are) was that our boys lose on Sunday morning, not badly but maybe by one point after a hard fought game and we could console our boys with how much better they are than they used to be, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then we could go home at a decent time.

We retired early on Saturday evening (just ask Drama; N and I both fell asleep on her sofa around 9:00 p.m. or so while watching TV; very comfy sofa BTW; yeah, we’re killer houseguests; invite us sometime and we’ll sleep on your sofa too), getting plenty of rest to be ready and raring to go Sunday morning. We’d seen a Krispy Kreme doughnut place on Saturday near the tournament site so we decided to have a Krispy Kreme breakfast on Sunday. Nothing says “Breakfast of Champions” like sugar and grease you know. We arrived at the field ready for action.

Of course, N’s team won. I don’t remember the exact score of that game, but the other team didn’t score at all and ours did so we won. Yay. Sort of. Now we had a few hours to kill prior to the championship game, which was scheduled as the very last game of the tournament. Sigh. . .

Fortunately, we had seen the day before one of our favorite restaurants that doesn’t have one in LNJ, Mimi’s Cafe. As luck would have it, I have a gift card for Mimi’s that was given to me before we moved from LOH. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?!? We went, we relaxed, we ate, we left, we still had over two hours to kill. I went to a local gas station and filled the car with gas. Then we went to the mega book store and looked around. I bought N a book he wanted and got one for myself. We then went to the overpriced overexposed northwest coffee place where we read our books over iced mocha and hot chocolate. N asked approximately every 60 seconds if we were going to be late getting back to the game. When it was finally only about 30 minutes too early to be returning to the field I acquiesced and returned him to his native habitat (the boy lives for soccer).

The team they played for the championship came in with a reputation of being tough physical players. Not only that many were big for their age (yes, proof of age is required so they were the right age, or good forgers). It turns out their idea of a physical game is illegal moves like throwing elbows and tugging the back of jerseys. Few fouls were called, many fewer than what I saw occur. However, our boys were going toe to toe with them, refusing to be intimidated. N is also a physical player, but he rarely makes illegal moves. He just blocks with his whole body which is perfectly legal. He was doing so well at it that the coach of the other team tried to convince the referee that N was playing dirty, but the referee said no. To me it was just sour grapes because N knows how to play well and refused to be bullied by bigger more intimidating players.

In the end, the championship game was much tougher than the other games our guys played. They couldn’t get the shutout like they had in their earlier games. The other team scored on them three times. Fortunately, our team scored seven times. N’s team was the champions of their age division! Woohoo! We went to the trophy area so the team could reap the benefits of their weekend.

Then we drove home, two hours, interrupted only by a rest area stop and dinner at Baker’s Square. It was a long weekend, but the food was excellent! Fattening too. I may not eat for a week. (Yeah right.)

So N now has another trophy for his shelf. It’s the first championship trophy though. The rest have mostly been participation trophies, and a second place trophy from baseball this spring. It was a long weekend but worth it to see the look on N’s face when he accepted his trophy, to see how proud he was of his and his team’s accomplishments. I totally dig this soccer mom gig!