The Monsoon Tournament of 2013

My kids love to road trip. If, for example, I said “soccer tournament at the beach,” one of them would head right to the garage for the boogie boards and that giant red shovel we bought one year at Sunsations. The other one would make a playlist.

We love the beach!

Last Friday we were set to go to the Sand Duels soccer tournament in Ocean City. Doyle’s teammates wisely left Thursday night. We were going to leave after school, because I was being my teacher self: We were not missing any school days for a soccer tournament. It’s not an excused absence, and I have already received one letter from Doyle’s school asking if I was aware of all of his actual, excused absences for the year, a number in the neighborhood of 12 or so.

And that was an absence or two ago.

(For the record, I am completely aware. I was the one, in most of those cases, who had to take off a day’s work to care for Young Mr. Virus. But hey, I appreciate that they checked.)

So, no early departures for us …

We have one of these shovels.

Except it’s hurricane season and there was the small matter of Tropical Storm Andrea churning it’s way up the coast and on tap to unleash its wet fury on the Delmarva peninsula around 4 p.m. on Friday, you know, the exact time we would have hit the drive-through Starbucks near our house and cranked up the iPod.

Welcome to living on the East Coast.

I pulled the kids out of school early. Soccer tournaments are not excusable, but in my mind weather emergencies are.

Here’s the team: The Shockwave!

We left at noon and drove through rain nearly the whole time, bands of heavy, ground-smacking rain that would give away to a calm and bright cloudiness the sun kept trying to break through.

Wipers. Sunglasses. Wipers. Sunglasses. For five hours.

Yep, a three-hour drive took five hours, and the road was full of travelers trying to outrun Andrea. In addition to the soccer tournament, a lacrosse tournament, a basketball tournament, an air show, and a car show were held at the beach this weekend. And it was Senior Week for many high school graduates.

In the small town of Cambridge, I was thankful for every green light because there was just enough water on the road that I didn’t want to stop.

But we made it.

Leeannah was not entirely convinced about eating crabs.

The skies were actually clearer at the beach, we checked into the hotel, went out for crabs, and began what turned into a great weekend.

Soccer tournaments like these are something of a reunion, and the team parents got to joking about who would run into the most people they knew. The celebratory atmosphere grew as our team, The Shockwave, won game after game. Some of the boys haven’t played together in a while, but they fell in like a seasoned team and easily out-passed their opponents.

Leeannah doesn’t like this photo, because she is wearing sunglasses over her regular glasses. I love it!

The weather remained on our radar — Leeannah thought she would test out the ocean water between her brother’s games. She went farther out than I had wanted her to and seconds later, she was a block away, tugged by an undertow. I started running down the beach, following her, when a lifeguard surpassed me and got in the water to guide her out.

Never realizing that she was in danger, she looked at the man with the whistle around his neck and called to me, “Is he a lifeguard? Who is he?”

You know, if your teenaged daughter is in danger, it’s sometimes best if she doesn’t know.

Doyle warms up in the goal.

Here’s another nugget of advice: Wet sand is worse than dry sand. You heard it here first. I know this because it was in my bag, my hair, my teeth, my wallet, and even in the bottom of the cup holder in my car after Saturday’s games.

Every child playing on Saturday looked like he had to go to the bathroom because he was constantly adjusting. That was the sand.

I am still finding sand as I type this, and I felt a bit like the kid that comes in from the yard covered in head-to-toe mud and you know that kid had a good time playing, because there was evidence to prove it.

Then, at the start of our team’s third game, everything turned monsoon. No lightning or thunder meant that the game went on, and we parents huddled together under two tents to cheer our boys on to a big victory in the deluge. My son, the goalie, actually was put in on the offense and scored himself a hat trick he will remember forever.

Who would have thought taking cover under a tent would have led the best moments of the day, but to me, they did.

When the rains started, we took pictures of the parents huddled in the next tent. We looked exactly like them.

It was a crazy, wet, one-of-a-kind afternoon.

And the only complaint my kids had once we got back home to Baltimore – our weekend at the beach was too short.

MVP

We were in a Royal Farm store after a soccer tournament when another player came up to meet my son.

“You’re that goalie,” he said.

“Yeah,” Doyle just grinned.

“Oh my god,” Leeannah –Sarah Dessen novel clutched to her chest — tried hard not to roll her eyes. Or make one of those gag-me-with-a-spoon gestures my generation used to charade when we were teenagers.

I didn’t blame her. It was bad enough that she had given up her Saturday to be at her brother’s soccer tournament. Now some club soccer player she had never met, would never talk to again, and wasn’t even as tall as her shoulder, was fawning over her little brother.

Insert that gagging gesture.

But this was the year we found out that Doyle was good at keeping a fast moving ball out of a rather large net. Really it was a surprise to all of us.  He was discovering it, too, and his dedication was so fierce that referees, other players, even parents would stop him after games and congratulate him on his play.

Our goalie

And we as a family embraced it. That meant that Leeannah gave up a lot of weekend time, and occasional evenings, for a game that she didn’t even play.

Well, OK, Leeannah played soccer for one season. Many, many years ago. Maybe she was six? She was the least aggressive person on every field, and sometimes I bribed her into going to practice by letting her take her American Girl doll.

Before that, when she was a wee little one, she took a dance class that she found very intimidating. And later, she took a dance class that she found terribly boring — barre work, by its nature, is repetitive after all.

She did learn to swim and to ice skate, to ski and then to snow board. She hiked. She took sewing lessons and art classes. She was in a play and then took up the clarinet.

She had things going on, in other words. None of them were team sports — and she was quite happy about that.

Then in sixth grade, she announced that she wanted to try out for the school’s cheerleading team. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think she would make it. I pictured her competition as every dancer who had stuck with the lessons and every gym rat who knew how to do a round off.

Because let’s face it, how easy is it for a kid these days to break into a sport in middle school? Not very. Every preschooler with a good throw is put in baseball camp, and the kindergartner who can run is handed a lacrosse stick. Power teens are out — it’s the ambitious elementary schoolers who are creating their futures.

I was sure heart break awaited.

Luckily I was wrong. Leeannah made the team. She made the team and she loved it. Her coordination and confidence improved. So did her cartwheels. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been a gym rat. She was working hard and learning a lot.

Leeannah cheers at an end-of-year show

In seventh grade, she went out for the team again and was chosen as captain. She fretted about having enough events to cheer for and about keeping the girls interested in a year-round team when lacrosse and spring soccer beckoned.

As an eighth grader, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stick with the school squad. But she did and was once named again captain. And then at the end of the year she was named the team’s MVP.

Yep, in the loud-mouthed, flashy sport of cheerleading, Leeannah was named a winner for making every practice, staying positive, and helping her teammates.

The MVP herself

Not the kind of stuff that’s going get her stopped her at the Wawa or congratulated her while she was trying to buy a Coke. But the kind of stuff that shouldn’t go unnoticed either.

So, here’s a bit of recognition for you, Miss MVP. We all see how hard you work and we couldn’t be prouder.

Family cookout

My sister is in her stepson’s bedroom, peering out the window at the neighbor’s house.

“Look, he grows roses,” she whispers. “And tomatoes.”

Produce is a big personality plus for my sister. She is an avid gardener, and I knew she liked her boyfriend when she proudly showed him the tangled paradise behind her duplex.

And I knew he liked her when he described how he took in that backyard scene and then asked her, “Alice, are you a bit eccentric?”

She is. She is indeed.

Case in point: The present espionage unfolding at the Memorial Day cookout, my sister with her trademark topknot bun and ruby lipstick lurking behind the curtains.

Sometimes it’s hard enough to choose your produce, let alone a boyfriend.

For years, she has wanted to set me up with her boyfriend’s neighbor, a firefighter who grows roses and tomatoes. And who happens to be home because there’s his car, and why look, his door is cracked open. And yes, that means Alice is still spying on him. Shhh!

Now she wants her boyfriend to invite him over. “Hurry up,” she tells him. Bossy, bossy.

Welcome to my life. The federal holiday version.

For years, I’ve heard about this neighbor that I have to date. Just like for years, I’ve heard about the crazy guy they know who once flew a Confederate flag.

In Baltimore City. A place that was never part of the Confederacy. A place where a lot of slaves fled to get work once they were freed. Yeah, I don’t know where to go with this. Except that about six months ago I discovered Mr. Rose Grower and Mr. Confederate Flag Waver were the same man. The exact same one.

“You want to set me up with a man who once had a Confederate flag?” I think I might have even sputtered as I spoke. “Just what do you think I will have in common with a man who has a Confederate flag?”

Short answer: He’s a man.

A few months ago, my sister said if I worked at a public school I would be remarried by now. It is true that working for a school for girls from under-served neighborhoods, a school that is run by nuns, probably limits my opportunities to meet men.

(I heard once that teaching is the most common profession of women who use online dating sites. For men, it’s law. Which reminds me, a while back I went out with a lawyer who mocked teachers’ salaries. Yeah, I think he’s still single.)

When my sister said that I would be married by now if I worked at public school, I pointed out that she has worked at public schools for her entire teaching career. And she has not, in fact … cough, cough … ever been married.

We don’t love her because she’s logical.

Another case is point: Years ago, I took a great job writing for a website run by the American Red Cross. This was the late ’90s. Writing for websites was still a new thing, and my sister was unconvinced about my career choice. “The only thing that will ever make money online is porn,” she announced at a family cookout. This one was at my parents’ house.

Truth be told, I’m sure internet porn remains a very lucrative venture, but you know how my sister the spy met her boyfriend?

It was online of course.

Weekend plans

There was a plan.

Originally, Doyle was scheduled to go to a soccer tournament over the weekend. His father generously agreed to come to Baltimore for an extra few days this month  so he and Doyle could travel to the exciting metropolis of Manheim, Penn., and even camp out with some of the other soccer families in a two-day bonanza of rustic-cabin-nonstop-soccer-limited bathing.

A dream weekend for our 10-year-old.

Leeannah was supposed to stay in Baltimore. We made plans for a Saturday night sleepover at my house, and I even invited some moms for drinks that night, the eve of Mother’s Day. I figured the three teens could have a movie marathon in the family room, while parents put their feet up and sipped wine in the living room.

But Doyle’s soccer team decided not to go to the tournament. Leeannah’s two sleepover invitees had family plans, and I made a meager attempt to rework our weekend by moving our “party” to Friday night.

Except I forgot I had Little League snack shack duty from 7 to 8. Yep, it’s true.

(When I look at our Sudoku of a schedule for the month of May, I think a nice little flask in a cute leopard print should be my accessory of choice these days.)

Leeannah was not sidetracked. Even without the tournament, she still wanted to stay with me, organize her room, watch “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” Stuff like that.

That was fine with him, her dad said. He and Doyle still wanted their all-sports-all-the-time weekend – they would throw the baseball, follow the NHL playoffs, and get some ice time in themselves on Sunday afternoon. Besides Kevin figured his real weekend with the kids was next weekend. That he didn’t want Leeannah to miss.

The kids don’t usually split time like this – they are a packaged set, a two-for-one combo.  The last time Leeannah and I had time alone, she was four, we lived in Montana, and we traveled to Seattle for the weekend.

Leeannah dances in a fountain in Seattle

So, I guess I was surprised that my 13-year-old daughter wanted to spend the weekend with me. That’s one of those things about our unique co-parenting arrangement – they are with their dad for six days of each month. Which means they were with me the rest of the time. Which equals a lot of time.

I mean, you’d think she’d be sick of me already. I’m not the cool one who flies in on a plane to see her. I’m the one who reminds her to stop dumping stuff from the dryer in the dirty clothes hamper because I can’t tell anymore what’s been washed, darn it!

Did I mention she’s 13 and I am her mother?

Here’s the thing – we had a lot of fun.

The highlight was Sunday – Mother’s Day – a day I had sort of envisioned spending by myself. Instead Leeannah was great company.

In the morning we took a four-mile walk – which gave us a lot of time to talk. We lazed through the rest of the day and then I introduced my little pescetarian to the tuna melt, that fine food consumed by university students across this nation.  “I think I’m going to like college,” she said.

And the best — I let her watch “Call the Midwife” with me. Luckily it wasn’t one of the more graphic episodes – Fred and Sister Evangelina on a motor bike – and she loved it.

It was a quiet, slow moving day.  A sunny, gorgeous, and fun day. We did things that we wanted to do and not what we had to do.

Which, when I think about it, is exactly what a girl’s weekend should be about.

What to tell my daughter about high school

I will start with the obvious: High school’s not like TV.

I will start with the obvious because my job is to track the progress of more than 50 girls every year as they make their way through high school, and every year the freshmen say the same thing to me, “It’s different that I thought it would be. It’s not like TV.”

No, it isn’t. No one has the wardrobe or the sex life of a Gossip Girl. No one is a vampire.

And being in show choir doesn’t solve everybody’s problems. It’s not like TV.

There are no episode-ending fist fights that triumphantly change one’s social course for the better. People who fight usually get suspended or expelled. Nor are there well-written verbal disputes breaking out in the hallways – no one is that eloquent when they are mad.

What a high school does have though are a lot of teenagers growing up and figuring out who the heck they are. That’s why high school life is featured in so many movies. We learn things during that time that we remember for the rest of our lives.

High school isn’t like TV. No one has the wardrobe or the sex life of a Gossip Girl. No one is a vampire.

Here’s one: Don’t be a dummy. Last year, the freshman girls told me what that meant. When the new 9^th graders arrived at their school, some of the older boys would guess which of the girls were “dummies” or could be easily talked into having sex with them because they didn’t know any better — they thought everybody was doing it.

Don’t be a dummy. Everybody’s not doing it, and the only thing you should ever let anybody talk you into is ordering Indian instead of Chinese. Pizza instead of burgers. Now begins a time of your life when things are too big and too important to be talked into. Remember that.

Because you’re a girl, now begins the time in your life when you will be judged by whom you date, how often you date, and how serious your relationships are. It’s true that the company one keeps is a good judge of character. But here’s the real deal with this: Men have never been judged the same way on this issue, and from what I can tell, never will be.

Remember when two boys at your middle school were caught looking into the girls’ locker room, and then a rumor spread that they were actually in the locker room with a girl? Who was then called a slut? Gossip like that doesn’t stop. Sadly, some people do it for the rest of their lives.

It feels unfair. It is unfair, but you have to move beyond that and challenge your friends to do the same. For the record, go ahead and take your time with dating. Be a little picky, even if that means spending more time with your friends than boys. That’s OK. Our culture does a really great job of telling girls they have to have a boyfriend to have a great life. But a boyfriend is a person, not an accessory.

Here’s something else. Getting drunk is overrated. You would never know it, because American adults talk about it all the time like it’s the greatest thing. They make jokes about it. They put drunk characters into movies and TV shows for extra laughs. They re-purpose random cultural holidays like Cinco de Mayo as days for Americans to get drunk.

I don’t know why. I gotta tell you — the worst year of my life was when I was 18, away at college, and everybody was getting drunk around me. I was surrounded by vomiting morons!

But we see it as a right of passage: Every teenager has to get drunk. We’ve gotten really good at telling people not to drink and drive. But we haven’t done so well with telling them not to drink and hook up. Not to drink and get into fights. Not to say or do things when you’re drunk that you wouldn’t do any other time.

You are going to be curious about beer and you are probably going to want to taste it sometime in your high school or college years. I understand that, maybe I will even let you have that sip so we can have a discussion about it. But you don’t need to get drunk.

Here’s another thing: You know all those classes they don’t show on TV – they are going to be hard, particularly at the public school you’ve chosen. You’re going to have to work hard in high school and there are going to be times when you’re going to wonder if it’s all worth it.

That’s true of high school life in general. You may get your heart broken or question the integrity of a friend. You may be challenged in ways you can’t prepare for. And you’re going to wonder if it’s all worth it.

But it is. It most certainly is. Because that’s life, babe. I predict your high school years will be interesting, story-producing, changing years of your life. They will be different and similar to what you expected. Nothing like TV, but something you will probably remember long after your favorite show is off the air.

Pockets are out!

Tweens and early teens are fun people. I should know –I work at a middle school for girls and I have a 10 year old and a 13 year old at home.

At least every other month Leeannah, age 13, leaves the house without her key, only to return home later and find herself locked out.

She walks to school – which is just across the street — and she is the first one out the door in the morning. She’s never had to lock up, so it’s been oh-so-easy for her to get to school and realize she doesn’t have that key.

Then there is Doyle, who is getting ready to go to middle school next year and is gaining more independence. He has a phone now, for example.

His school is also in walking distance from our house — once or twice a week he will text me after school to tell me he is going to play soccer on the athletic fields with his friends before he heads home to start his homework.

My school is the farthest away. I actually have to drive there. Our program is extended day – the girls are there until five – and I am on the late shift, so I am there until five as well. This means my kids get home before me.

That also means I was in study hall yesterday afternoon when my son texted: Two friends had invited him to walk to Royal Farm. Could he go? Oh, and he had four dollars. What did I think he could buy with that?

“Let him go,” Sister Virginia said when I explained the series of family texts that were chirping on my phone. Sister Virginia is one of the founding teachers of our school, a legend amongst our students, and someone who walked more than a mile to school back in her day. “Let him go.”

It would be good for him, we agreed.

So it was set – Doyle stopped in the house to drop off his back pack, pick up his money, and lock up. Then he was off.

Except somewhere between our house and Royal Farm, the key disappeared. Doyle didn’t realize it, because he was also carrying his wallet and his phone.

“You weren’t wearing pants with pockets?” Don’t all of his pants have pockets?

Where was the spare key when we needed it?

As it happened, this was one of those days when Leeannah had left her key at home. So, there they both were, Thing One and Thing Two, keyless and locked out.

My dad has an extra key but he didn’t answer his cell. It was just that kind of day.

At this point, I might have been home myself. Instead I was at a whole other school, helping out with SAT prep classes. Twice a semester, I teach these classes. One of those nights was last night. Of course.

“Walk back to the Royal Farm,” I told Leeannah when she called, stalling for a little time. “See if the key is there”.

It wasn’t.

Doyle’s key was gone. Leeannah’s key was locked inside the house, and oh yeah, they were now calling me from Doyle’s phone because Leeannah had dropped and broken hers.

Is there something about pockets that I don’t know? Have they disappeared? Become politically incorrect?

What is the reason that children don’t put things in their pockets?

I am wondering if Sister Virginia knows the answer to this.

In the meantime, I owe the other SAT prep teacher a six pack of beer for taking over the class tonight. I’ll hit the liquor store right after I get a few keys made – one to replace Doyle’s lost key, a spare one for Leeannah to always keep in her backpack.

And one for our neighbor, just in case the stars align and both kids get locked out of the house on the same day once again.

A new normal?

Forgive me, for in the past two years I have prepared my house and my children for two hurricanes. We have recovered from a freak storm called a derecho that left us without power for what felt like interminable days in 100-degree heat.

And at work last Friday, when Boston was in lockdown as police searched for the second marathon bombing suspect, the faculty at my school was discussing more safety initiatives in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn. school shootings.

 

So forgive me, when I listened to coverage of the Boston lockdown on that day and I wondered is this the new normal?

 

No, no, one of my friends quickly insisted. “This is not Israel.”

 

Israel. Funny he mentioned that. A college classmate is Israeli. When we went to France for a study abroad, other parents warned their children about trusting strangers, seeking good exchange rates, and using sunscreen. Her parents told her to get down on the ground if she heard gunfire.

 

At the time, we laughed about that. But I have told my children – if you hear something strange, take cover. Protect yourself. Get out of the way.

 

More than a decade ago, there was a police standoff in my neighborhood. The police took over the house where I live now and used it as a staging area. There was a sniper in my bedroom with a gun trained on the home where a suspect was holed up.

 

I didn’t live here then – my grandmother did. She was evacuated to my sister’s home. I remember calling the police on her behalf and asking them if she could have some of the medication that she left behind when she fled. They were very agreeable, of course.

 

In Boston were people stuck in their homes without needed medication or food or diapers or whatever they needed and could get on any regular Friday? How many of them will now stockpile a few of these items or squirrel flashlights and batteries like those of us who live in the path of a hurricane?

 

On Facebook, I saw a photo of police officer bringing milk to one family. Another friend sent me an Esquire article about a man in Boston who had drunkenly spent the night with a woman only to awake to the lockdown and the worst possible post-hook-up follow-up a modern dater could imagine. Somebody’s going to write a short story about that one, I bet.

 

No matter where a person stands on the issue of gun control, there had to have been a certain amount of pride in seeing the well-armed and well-equipped police officers and federal agents who took control of Boston and loosened the grip of terror.

 

But even a week later, I keep thinking about the every day people and how they will now live their lives.

 

What will they tell their children to watch out for?