[If you, Dear Reader, have not yet read the prior post, "so, the day has come", you may wish to read it before reading this. Or not, as you wish. We're fairly lax around here at Drunken Housewife Industries. We just hum, "Oh yeah, oh yeah, rock on" as we go about our lazy way].
So, best intentions notwithstanding, I snapped at Softball Event #5 in 8 days, day #4 in a four day string of Softball Every Day Goddammit. The background is that it was very cold out, a windy, foggy day, and Lola was tired and hungry. The Little League practices are held in a corner of Golden Gate Park which is not convenient to anything. There is supposed to be a large playground nearby, but that has been closed for construction for over a year and does not appear to be ready to open anytime soon. As Lola observed yesterday, "There is nobody working on it", although it was a weekday during regular working hours. [I nearly got into a fight with another mother recently who insisted "That playground is opening in spring 2007." I said firmly, "I was there yesterday, and it's nowhere near ready to open! There's nothing done!" She repeated steelily, "It's opening in spring 2007." Taking it up a notch, I said with a bit of a bite, "It's already March, 2007, and it's not done." One, or possibly both of us, really should get a job].
Lola was constantly whining, "I'm hungry! I want to go to a restaurant!" and I snapped and said, "We have to take Iris to her fucking softball practice!" (I apologized to Iris soon after for this). I also vented my anger by calling the Official Softball Parent, the man whose idea this all was, and bitching at him about how he'd taken Iris's mitt out of my trunk so we had no mitt and what a pain it was and how it was all his idea (he was safely ensconced in a snuggly, warm, sheltered-from-the-wind tech start-up in sunny Palo Alto).
So there we have it: just slightly over one week into the Little League season, and I've already lost my temper and sworn. Softball is idiotic in San Francisco. We don't have lovely spring or summer weather, unlike other locales (our lovely warm time of the year is fall). This practice location is also idiotic when you consider that so many parents need to haul another child along, and there's no playground or other amenities nearby. And of course, I'm the biggest idiot of all, with my snobby tastes and short temper. The other softball mothers on hand were, practically to a woman, beaming with joy and happiness at the prospect of standing around in the fog for an hour to watch their progeny take forever and a day to hit a ball. Maybe I should root through their purses to see what they're on.
8 comments:
I appreciate your distress (is it the big children's playground that's closed? or another?) See if this cheers you up, it was over 100 degrees here twice this week already. In a another three weeks or so, we simply won't be able to go outside between the hours of 8 AM and 8 PM without burning our retinas and developing suspicious moles. My 7 year old daughter has to have a mole removed!!!
Yes, it's the big children's playground. I feel pretty pissy about it because we loved the big pink and white triangle maze, which was unique, and that was completely usable. It should have been left there. Granted, the wooden climbing structure and swings needed work, but the whole thing was razed. There is no other crazy triangle maze anywhere I know of.
p.s. The big 24 hr Cala at the end of Haight St by the entrance of the park is also closed, so we can't walk there to buy a snack. There's not really anywhere we can go in one hour, given that Lola is tired by that time of day (especially since she has a swimming lesson earlier in the day).
have you ever thought that (despite IUA's wishes), this just isn't the right thing for the family? maybe later, when she can take herself to softball practice (shudder) she can be free to do so?
there are limits to being a benign parent (not that i'd know). but limits are what make the world go round. are you worried you are suppressing iris's future as a professional softball player? (highly unlikely).
also, i love you.
I love you, too, Hughman. I feel stuck because this was THE HUSBAND'S DOING. I passed on basketball, thank God (which I heard sucked humongously, thank God I didn't fall into that trap). I wasn't going to jump for this one, but the old ball and chain did the paperwork & went to orientation.
Well, that is an intense schedule for any primary grade child.
That said...If Iris really likes this, she's probably going to be really good at it, and she may play for the rest of life. (which is a good thing about softball) but she may just play through high school and keep busy and happy and out of trouble.
Or she may just find out she doesn't like it, and you gave her the chance to find out even though it was horribly, horribly inconvenient and sucky.
I spent one season as a soccer mom, which was not nearly as much fun as the commercials show. It was either miserably hot and humid (and they mowed the field on Saturday, which aggravated my husband's grass allergies, so on the following day his eyes were always swollen shut.) or it was rainy and cold. Another couple of years in gymnastics, ending when my children's fear of heights became apparent.
Hughman, you can't avoid your fate as a parent. I had visions of a karate champ and I got a ballerina.
well then make the HUSBAND go to all these horrible games or whatever they are! at least basketball is indoors!!
and anonymous, i understand to the point that parents need not just "give in" to their children's whims.
*sigh* easy to say when you aren't a parent, i suppose. i have a hard enough time not going where polly wants to go on our morning walk.
Such a crappy place to be. I know that I have to jump when my daughter expresses interest in any sort of extracurricular activity, even if it is personally annoying, because she usually shys away from them. Right now, it's Brownies. I selfishly don't mind taking her to these meetings because I hang in the hallway and read/write/sketch. If I'm in the room, she clings to me and participates much less. Last night from the hall, I heard her read the Brownie Promise to the entire troop ALONE, and she never ever would have done that with me in the room- though she'll recite it in the comforts of her home just fine! Sometimes you just have to do it. Though I refuse to sign her up for any classes at Le Studio because I hate the owner- excessively sharp with the children. I do agree however, that Anton should be doing the bulk of this work.
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