recreational soccer mom's primer

Today is the "Lorain County Fall Classic" (county tournament that has been renamed and de-competitivized) so I thought I would share a little of the knowledge I'm privy to from being married to a youth soccer coach/referee.  After listening to the parents at my step daughters last few soccer games, I think some parents could use a little more information about the rules of the game and the calls the referee may or may not be making. 

1. Subbing (non-injury)  I know it's frustrating.  The ref seems to be ignoring the subs your child's coach has waiting at mid field.   The other players are tired and you are hoping these subs can breathe life into the rest of the half.  Your child's coach can only put subs in when the game stops for his own throw in or his own goal kick or after a goal.  OR if the other team is subbing on their own throw in or goal kick.  As long as the other team is able to keep the play going without a score or sending the ball out of bounds, your subs will keep waiting.

2.  Injuries  If the injured player is not involved in the play the ref is not required to stop the game.  This only makes sense.   If your teams best player got a breakaway, one of the other teams players could just cry injured to stop the play and give his teammates more time to set up and stop the goal.   When the play does stop, the coach may send in one substitution for his injured player.

3.  Loose shoelaces  Ditto my last point.  Play will not be stopped to give somebody time to tie their shoes.  It's not the ref's responsibility to make sure your kid's shoes are tied.  Double knot them before they get out of your car.

4.  Goalie  SURPRISE!!!  The goalie is permitted to come out of the box.  Once the goalie is out of the box they are considered a regular player and may not use their hands in play.  She better be quick to get back though if she doesn't want to be running laps around the field after the game.

5.  Heckling  However the ref calls it, that's the way it is.  The ref is not going to change his call based on how mad or how loud you get.  No ref will see absolutely everything and make every call correctly.  You should know the referee is allowed to penalize your team based on too much heckling from parents.   This could  include banning the most vocal ones from the next game or the extreme of calling the game off.  If you think you can do that much better, take the class, buy the uniform, and have a go at it but give the ref a break.

6. Playing time  In most recreational leagues all players must have equal playing time.  The coach may not keep in his best players at the expense of playing time for the weaker ones.  My husband technique is to "hide" his weak players on offense.  Whatever your child's coach chooses to do, he has to give all players equal time. 

Finally....

7.  Remember  Don't put too much emphasis on the win.  This is recreational youth soccer.  Yelling and negativity won't encourage the love of the game.  If your child shows a lot of talent maybe it's time to move on to a more competitive league.

Do-a-Dot Printables

George came home from school with a letter P stamped in circles.  He was very excited to tell me all about "do-a-dot".   It's an activity they do at school to help with fine motor skills.  Since his teacher told me that is the only area of concern she has with George, we picked up our own pack at Michael's Crafts this morning. 

This is a super activity that doesn't create any mess whatsoever.  There is a complete set of uppercase letters at Tot School.  Two places to find pictures to Do-a-Dot are Making Learning Fun and DLTK Kids.  Or google "do a dot printables" or "bingo dauber art" to find your own.

Happy Dotting!

Making the switch: A young person's pocket guide to surviving transition times with divorced parents

I'm the kid! Dealing with Parent Drama

Even though we are all taught in the court mandated parenting class that it is in your best interests for us to refrain from exposing you to our arguments, unfortunately there are some parents who will never learn to get along. And sometimes you get drawn into the conflicts. It's helpful to have a response ready when this stuff happens. Something simple like, "Please don't involve me in this stuff. I have enough to deal with of my own." (Parents reading this, please hire a therapist to dump your insecurities and issues on, don't do it to your children.)



Where's my stuff?

Constantly moving between two households can make it hard to keep track of your favorite things. I've found that a large duffel bag can come in very handy. The super size kind they sell in the sporting goods stores. The bag itself is very light and can fit a ton or just a little bit. Whatever you happen to need. If you keep your things in this when they aren't in use, it is much easier to keep track of them. An added bonus is that you don't have to spend so much time packing things up for each switch.



Sorry, I can't make it. Missed activities

This becomes more of an issue the older you get. You have to spend time with both parents but friends are becoming more important. When parents live any distance from one another, getting to things like sporting events, birthday parties and sleepovers can be a challenge. If you don't have parents who are willing to sacrifice, there isn't much you can do about this. Make sure your parents understand how this makes you feel. Maybe you can negotiate at least one activity a month. Social networking (facebook and myspace) and texting can make staying in touch with friends a little easier but doesn't make up for the missed events IRL.

Luke Playing Soccer

Here are some pictures of Luke playing for his AASL team.

In the Medina 8/16 album, he's in pictures 8 (wearing blue), and 20, 39, & 43 (wearing white).

Rachel - Swimming Like A Fish

8 year old Rachel has been participating on the swim team at her mom's this summer. Unfortunately all the competitions are during the day. I took a vacation day and took her to her final meet, the league championship.

There were 9 teams and a total of 508 swimmers of various ages. Rachel competed in 4 races. The 4x25 Medley Relay, 25m Backstroke, 25m Breaststroke, and 4x25 Freestyle Relay.

First up was the Medley Relay, where she swam the 3rd leg (breaststroke). She started in 3rd place and held her position, and her team finished 3rd.

Next was the Backstroke. There were 5 heats, 35 swimmers in all, in the 8 and under girls backstroke. Rachel was in the final (fastest) heat but she was in an outside lane, meaning she was around the 6th or 7th fastest time, coming into the race.

She started decent, swam hard all the way, and finished strong. It looked like she was 2nd, but when they announced the results, Rachel was the champion! Her time was 24.54!

Next came the Breaststroke. She was this time in the 2nd of 3 heats, against slower competition. She swam well again, winning her heat in a time of 32.65. She ended up faster than 2 swimmers in the final heat so she was awarded 7th place overall.

Finally she swam the 3rd leg in the freestyle relay. She started in 3rd, and swam well, almost catching the girl in first. However, the girl in 2nd also swam well, catching up to the girl in first. Rachel's team finished 3rd again.

They had a t-shirt stand and Rachel wanted a sweatshirt. I told her before her first race she had to be top 3 to get a sweatshirt. Well she certainly was, and not only did I buy her the sweatshirt, but I paid a little extra to get a sparkly puppy-dog pawprint on the sleeve.

Elementary Quiz Bowl

Victoria, George, and I picked up Mom yesterday and drove to South Central to watch Luke and Brooke participate in their 5th and 6th grade Quiz Bowl match.

There were 3 preliminary rounds with 4 different players each from each team. They buzzed in and answered questions for 10 minutes. The 4th round was again 4 players each with the advisors choosing their best players from the previous 3 rounds.

Luke, being a 6th grader, was on the team last year but this is Brooke's first season. Brooke was selected to play in the first round. She was one of the first to buzz in, misspelling abbreviation (abbreveation). She later got a question right, from this year's literature book, Island Of The Blue Dolphins. Brooke's team won their round 13-4 (over a much smaller school). She definitely did well considering it was her first match.

Luke was in the 3rd round team and got 14 questions right (and 2 wrong) in leading his team to a 19-6 win of their round. He added some humor to the match a couple times.

First was by buzzing in early as the questioner had said, "Two men played 5 games of checkers. Each won ..." and answering, "They didn't play each other." Luke loves riddles and had heard this one before.

Later, the other team missed a math question and Luke was trying to buzz in before the mediator had cleared the buzzer system. He held his buzzer higher and higher in the air, pressing the button the entire time, with a determined look on his face. This look was replaced by one of shock when the buzzer system was reset and Luke's teammate's buzzer light came on instead of his.

In the final round, Luke got 7 right (and 4 wrong) and their team won by a final score of 62-26. It was fun to see the kids participate and do well. One of the hardest questions of the day was, "Name 7 things you can wear on your feet that start with the letter S?" Do you know the answer?

Before taking Mom back home, we stopped to visit Aunt Margie & Uncle Tom and watched President Obama's Inauguration on TV. Then we tried to have lunch at Ella Mae's, but it was closed so we took the only other option in town, McDonalds.

Skeleton Run - George's First Race

Back on October 25th, Luke, Brooke, Rachel, George, and I went to Amherst for the Skeleton Run. I'm not close to racing shape yet but the kids have run the 1-Mile Funny Bone Run for a few years and they also have a Silly Bone quarter mile for George.

Weather was crisp, a nice day for running. Rachel kept George company and he got a t-shirt and a ribbon for finishing a lap on the track.

Luke ran very well, starting 11th at the start and 5th at the next watching spot. He finished 3rd overall and was 2nd in his age group. He really runs an even race and finishes strong, a rare trait for a young runner. His final time was 6:31, just 22 seconds behind the winner. He was 10th overall last year in 7:20.

Brooke also did great, starting at the back of the race with Rachel, moving up from 39th at the start to 19th after just another block. I missed getting a video of her finish but she did get a medal for 3rd among girls 9-10. Her time was 7:54 and she was 19th overall. She was 18th overall last year in 8:24.

Rachel ran just over 10:00, an improvement of about a minute from laste year's 10:59. Here is a video of her finishing.

Leaving George

I am in a huge quandary.

Every August, Kevin has a conference in Atlantic City. For the past 3 years, I have tagged along. It's a lot of fun and VERY nice to have some time away.

This year I am very reluctant to leave our 2 year old home. He came along when he was newborn. And then last year, my oldest came along with him to "babysit". He was only 17 months at that time. This year he is much more active and mobile. He will be very unhappy with a 10 hour car ride back and forth, not to mention being cooped up in the hotel all week. Atlantic City is not designed for kids.

Is he going to be scarred by 5 days away from home with relatives and no mom or dad in sight? Is it better for me to stay home and let Kevin go alone? I'm just not sure what's best for George.

The Mother's Helper

It's times like these, I wish I was Amish.

Today I had the great pleasure of having Catherine here to help us out. I have a home daycare so on days off school, in addition to our 6 youngest children, I have up to 5 additional daycare clients. After last summers big changes to my husband's visitation schedule, I realized that every other full week during the summer with up to 11 kids was going to quickly overwhelm me.

With Kevin's help I located the modern day equivalent of the old fashioned "mother's helper". An ultimate overachiever from the local senior class, Catherine is amazing. Today was a dry run for her. We took a field trip to the NASA Glenn Visitor's Center. If she wasn't scared off, she'll give me a hand entertaining the kids this summer. We decided on a rate of $7 an hour plus $.50 a mile.

I wish I could afford her everyday.

Eliza

Check out this article about the birth of my great niece!

Ashland cop helps mom deliver baby girl in van

December 6, 2007

By IRV OSLIN

T-G Staff Writer

If he could remember that far back, it would have been deja vu for Abraham Dvorak.

Abraham was born in a car 32 years ago in Valley City. His wife, Katie, recently gave birth to their daughter, Eliza, in the family mini van at Center and Main streets.

Katie, 28, went into labor at the couple's home in Nova in the early morning hours of Nov. 24.

Abraham and Katie jumped into their van and headed for Samaritan Hospital. They made it as far as Third and Orange streets, where Abraham flashed his lights at a police cruiser in an attempt to pick up an escort.

At first, Officer Brian Evans didn't think much of it. It was about 3:10 a.m. and he was used to seeing newspaper delivery people making their rounds at that hour.

"Sometimes they flash their lights at me," he said.

Abraham stopped, got out of the van and announced that his wife was having a baby.

Evans was dumbfounded.

"I just stared at him," he said.

Evans planned to escort them to the hospital, but Eliza couldn't wait.

"We came to Second Street and I turned my (overhead) lights on to go around," Evans said. "I got through the intersection at Center and Main and saw him stop and get out of the driver's door."

Evans radioed for a squad and approached Katie, who was sitting in the passenger seat.

Evans can be heard on a recording of the radio call telling the dispatcher, "She's having it."

Seconds later, he came on the radio again and said, "She had it."

"She was just sitting there pushing and sure enough, here comes the baby," Evans said. "I don't have kids, so I've never seen anything like it."

Within seconds, Eliza started crying.

Dispatcher Sue Kelley told Evans to get his cell phone and she would coach him on how to handle the baby from that point. But his phone was in the cruiser and he didn't want to leave Katie's side. He borrowed Abraham's cell phone, but he wasn't familiar with the keypad layout.

Kelley began to coach him on the air as the squad was arriving.

The EMTs decided to keep Katie and Eliza in the warm van and one of the squad men drove it to the hospital.

"I thought it was very nice to let us stay inside the van," Katie said.

Eliza is the Dvorak's fourth child. She joins siblings Oren, 6; Zane, 4; and Ava, 2.

"They keep getting faster and faster," Katie said. "It was kind of a scary situation, but luckily everything came out OK."

n Irv Oslin can be reached at 419-281-0581 ext. 240 or at ioslin@ times-gazette.com.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween for us started on Saturday when Brooke, Rachel and I went to the trick-or-treat party at the local community college. Basically we waited in line for about 45 minutes before parading through several campus buildings where students passed out candy in the halls. At the end the girls colored pictures for a coloring contest, then Brooke got in line for a balloon animal while Rachel showed off her pirate costume on stage for the costume contest.

Later on Saturday we carved pumpkins. We take our pumpkin carving seriously at the "family of 9", using patterns and special pumpkin cutting tools. Below are this year's results:




Victoria did an awesome job on this skeleton fish!







Nathan carved a pirate face.








Brooke made a wise owl.








Jacob made his pumpkin into a lizard.







And Rachel, with her dad's help, made a scary wolf.

Luke didn't carve a pumpkin this year since he spent most of Saturday at a friend's birthday party.

On to Wednesday. Dad rearranged his parenting time schedule so that he could pick up the girls and bring them trick-or-treating. Luke stayed and went to church with his mom, and Nathan was ill with asthma. Jacob went with his cousins D & D.

Rachel again wore her pirate outfit, while Brooke was a dead princess and little George dressed in a warm Tigger suit. Even Dad got dressed up, walking along with the kids in his Anderson Varejao wig.





One of the houses we stopped along the way was local radio personality Bob Frantz, who moved into our neighborhood about a year ago.

We had a talk before we started and the kids followed my rules:

1. Stay on the sidewalks, don't walk on people's grass.
2. Say "Thank you" when someone gives you a treat.
   
3. Say "Trick Or Treat", don't just hold out your bucket.

It took us the full hour and a half to walk our neighborhood, including both sets of clusters off our main road. The weather was nice and everyone was friendly. By the end, the kids baskets were overflowing into the little green wagon that George rode in part of the way.

George's basket was so heavy he could hardly hold it, but he wasn't about to let go of it!

As you can see from the final picture, the kids made out pretty good.

Hello Again

Well I have been neglecting this blog on purpose. We were back in court over the custody issue and I didn't want to post anything here that might be somehow used against me. For more details, see my other blog.

Meanwhile, we had a busy weekend last weekend, the final one before school starts. Friday night was uniform night at the soccer fields, so Victoria was on duty to distribute uniforms to new players. Meanwhile, Kevin drove to LaGrange to pick up the new "alternate jerseys" for when we play other blue teams.

While in LaGrange, Kevin noticed that the overly-worn tire on the Taurus had finally gone flat, so he quickly put on the spare. George helped. Or at least, he waited patiently.

Saturday morning we had 2+ soccer games. Luke, Brooke and Nathan played in their co-ed game and lost 9-3. Immediately after, Brooke played (mostly goalkeeper) in her girls game and lost 5-1.  Luke and Nathan then substituted on a U13 team that is shorthanded and they won 8-2! Jacob skipped his 1PM game so that we could leave for "the cottage."

"The Cottage" is at Catawba Island where Nanny & Poppy now stay during the summer, when they come up from Florida. Victoria likes to meet some friends from college there for a weekend each summer, and this was the weekend.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the beach, then had a cookout, visited, and played games. Victoria learned (again) to play euchre. The kids watched the Cat in the Hat.

Sunday morning we went to the beach again, before having lunch, and then leaving just in time to get back for Luke and Nathan's 3rd soccer game of the weekend, this one a thrilling 5-4 loss.

Next weekend looks to be almost as busy, even without soccer!

The Big Weed

For the past few weeks I have slowly watched our distraught lawn turn a deadly shade of dark yellow. In the midst of the crunchy yellow grass is one "pricker bush" that is an inviting shade of dark green. Pulling in the driveway today, I finally decided it had to go.

I asked Nathan to go over and yank it out for me. The other 5 piled out of the van and ran after him. They surrounded the weed. What is it about kids that whine, complain and stomp about at only being asked to make their bed, that they all begged to deal with this task.

Rachel finally cut it off at the base and threw the rest over the hill. I didn't want to mention that by not pulling it, it would only grow back even bigger.

George's First Easter Egg Hunt

We went to an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday put on by our parks department. It was in the skating rink. There is no ice at this time so there was a carpet down. They spread straw over a large area and then scattered the eggs on and under the straw.

Kids went by age to find the plastic eggs. Most eggs had candy inside, Tootsie Rolls, Hershey Kisses, and Nestle eggs, and other small candies. A few eggs had papers inside that could be turned in for a "prize."

Luke has won numerous prizes in his egg-hunting career but this hunt was for 3rd grade and younger so Luke and Nathan had to watch and cheer for their siblings.

George was in the first group, ages 2 and under. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, but neither were most of the other kids his age, so there was no real disadvantage. George got a dozen or so eggs and put them in his pretty yellow basket.

The next group was preschoolers. Amazingly we have no children at this age!

After that came the kindergarteners and first graders. Rachel was ready, hoping to fill her pillowcase with plastic eggs. She gathered as fast as she could, and when they were all popped open, she had found 2 "medium basket" certificates!

Brooke and Jacob teamed together in the final group, 2nd and 3rd graders. The plan was for Jacob to hold the pillowcase open and Brooke to grab the eggs, but neither let go of the pillowcase and they quickly resembled an entrant in a 3-legged race. Nonetheless, they got a good quantity of eggs and found 2 "jelly bean tube" certificates.

As is customary at local park events, we saw Brad from the Tuesday night running group, who was there with his girls, Jamie and Brooke, as well as his wife, sister, and several other family members.

Scott tissue Cloggiest Moment Contest

Well, Scott Tissue announced the winner of their Cloggiest Moment contest. It wasn't us, but I think our entry is just as funny.

A Very Impractical Joke: the adventure of the toilet squirter

With 6 children in the house, we have a LOT of cloggy moments. One Christmas, our son got a practical joke kit. Along with the fake gum, spoon with a fly on it, and bar of soap with a hidden spider, came the now infamous toilet squirter. A toilet squirter is a little rubber ball you fill with water and set between the seat and the bowl. A clear pipe extends from it and when you sit down, it squirts your bottom.
He tried to play the toilet squirter joke on his 13-year-old sister. The prank failed miserably when the squirter was jarred loose, she didn’t see it, and it got flushed. The squirter and some toilet paper remained jammed in the toilet for days. We drained and removed the toilet. My husband tried everything he could think of to knock it loose, all with no luck. Finally, our friend lent us his plumbing snake and that did the trick.
Much to the dismay of our children, Santa never again left anything quite so cool as a toilet squirter.

The Dilema - Treating All Kids Evenly

In a recent post to my Weekends With Dad blog, I describe how Luke and I won free Cavs tickets. This has created a minor dilemma in our household.

Victoria is concerned, and rightly so, that Nathan (who is Luke's age and plays on the same basketball team as Luke) will be jealous that I am taking Luke to the game and not Nathan. Nathan has a father but he is currently in Oregon. The speak about once a week on the phone. He recently sent Nathan and Jacob a Nintendo DS game. But he really is not involved in their lives in any significant way at this time.

Is me taking Luke to the game being unfair to Nathan? What is the right way to handle things like this? I'm not really sure.

I will post more later when I have (hopefully) gained more insight into this issue. I just wanted to get it down in writing for now.