Sudden Realization

N and I were driving home from Hebrew school when the lightning started. I'd told him we needed to stop at the supermarket on our way home, and he began to worry about being hit by lightning while we were in the store. (If you have a kid on the spectrum, you know that by "began to worry" what I really mean is "began to perseverate on and spiral into a full-on freakout over...")

I began to explain to him why we didn't need to worry about the store being hit by lightning, which only shifted the worryperseveration/freakout onto the possibility of being hit by lightning in the parking lot. I pointed out the tall light poles, and told him to just not hold onto one, and he'd be fine. I also began to tell him about how vanishingly rare it is for lightning to strike down right where a specific person is, and how he really didn't need to worry about it at all.

"Really," I said, "the only time you need to worry about lightning is when you're in a wide-open field with no trees, or on top of a mountain. And the WORST THING would be to be on a wide-open field on top of a mountain!"

At which point I stopped dead in my tracks, pulled out my phone, and texted Baroy.

ME: Ummmm... Top of mountain, open field, soccer practice, my daughter... Really? Still there?

BAROY: Yup. But under cover, talking.

ME: Oooookay. I guess.

Frickin' soccer. (According to Baroy, they'll be home--soaking wet, freezing cold, but apparently unfried--any minute now. But still.)

Bittersweet

I owe you all a couple of long posts, and certainly an explanation (not that there's much of one) for my long absence. But for right now, I just want to tell one quick story, without the pressure of having to write about all that has and has not been going on here. OK by you? Just for now?

Em's all-star soccer team was playing today; the team is actually not especially impressive, but Em's having a good time because she's on the team with one of her best friends, J. At today's game was J's aunt and her two cousins. N started playing with the older of the two boys, D, during half-time, and spend the entire second half of the game wandering around the woods behind the field, going off to the nearby playground, kicking a ball against the fence.

At one point, as they headed off to get some water at the water fountain, I saw D put his arm around N's waist, and my heart melted more than a little bit. (Psst. There's a little bit of a twist to this story, one that explains its title, and that last sentence? Was your foreshadowing/clue.)

As we left the park at the end of the game (they lost, 3-2, but that's two more goals than they've scored in almost every game they've played so far, so we were all in a good mood), N asked D if he wanted to play out in the street after they'd both had lunch. D's mom confirmed that they would be at J's house and would love to get together with N later on, and we parted company.

We were walking to the car when N, ebullient, said, "I have a new friend, Mommy. I'm good at making new friends, am I?"

I smiled at him and said, "Of course you are, sweetie."

But it was a bit of a sad smile. Because D? Celebrated his 3rd birthday just a few days ago. And N? Celebrated his 9th last week.

And if anything encapsulates the quirkiness that is my son, it's those two numbers--and N's complete lack of awareness of them.

From the Sidelines

Em went down, hard, twice during Saturday's soccer game, the last of the regular season. The first time was during a physical run next to another girl, during which she took some combination of a shoulder and an elbow to the solar plexus, and fell, doubled over, forehead on the ground.

I waited--days, I'm sure--for the ref to blow the whistle to stop the play so someone could go see if she was alright. Nothing. And so, from the sidelines, I started yelling to the line judge. "She's hurt! Get him to blow the whistle!" I said, as I started onto the field.

Baroy grabbed my arm. "You can't go out there," he said.

"But she's hurt!" I repeated. And I shook him off, ready to go, when FINALLY I heard a whistle blow and, simultaneously, saw Em's head come up. Her coach went out onto the field, got her up, had her stretch, made her giggle. The game resumed.

When the quarter ended, Em came trotting over to me. "MOM!" she said. "You weren't going to come on the FIELD, were you?"

"You were HURT," I protested. "You were doubled over. What was I supposed to do? Wait for you to start vomiting up blood while the rest of the girls trampled over you?"

Baroy snorted. Em rolled her eyes a little. "I was OK," she said. "I was mostly worried about what YOU were gonna do!"

-------

I feel like I'm doing a lot of my parenting from the sidelines lately, waiting for the ref to blow the whistle, unable to get onto the field to help. It may have been the literal case for a few seconds on Saturday, but it's the perfect metaphor for N at school these days. There are meetings and discussions, and people talk a lot about what they are going to do, but they don't actually DO any of it.

The whistle hasn't blown yet. My kid is in a heap on the field, and the play is continuing around him. Am I going to have to wait for him to vomit up blood and get trampled by the rest of the players?

Why isn't anyone blowing the damned whistle?

-------

Em went down for the second time later in the game, after scoring a goal with her left foot. She was off balance, that not being her 'regular' kicking foot. (She'd seen the goalie out of position, knew it was her only shot, and took it.) Right after she kicked, a defender from the other team slammed into her, and she went down, skidding, burning patches of skin off of her knee, her shin, her elbow, and her belly.

You could see tears in her eyes as she got up. But the first thing she did was to check the goal, to be sure she'd put the ball where she'd intended it to go. Then she looked over toward the sidelines, toward me, and grinned, pumping her fist.

The whistle blew. Score.

Kickin' It

The upshot of the soccer saga? Midweek, before he even had a chance to come see her again, we got an email from the coach, inviting Em--and not-Em--to be on the tournament team. For reals, this time.

Said coach is known to be tough. As I write this, Baroy is out there watching her at the team's first practice, and texting me. "He's not too warm and fuzzy," he remarked a few minutes ago, then, "But she looks good."

She does indeed.

Pride

[This is a shot from an exhibition match Em's team played at a local community college a few weeks ago. The guy to the left in the foreground is Baroy. The player in blue farthest to the right on the field is Em.]

The soccer thing got even more complicated after my last post. Way more complicated. Almost too complicated to explain, but I need to. So I can also explain my pride.

On Monday, Baroy got an email from the scout I wrote about. It was addressed to four or five different parents, and it was an invitation for our girls to play in an 'elite' soccer tournament over Thanksgiving weekend. Whether or not this was a prelude to being invited to play on the sectionals all-star team, we didn't know. But it was exciting. Em was positively beaming.

Baroy made sure to reply quickly, saying Em would be thrilled to be part of the team. A few hours later, he received another note, saying, "Great! Your daughter is the tall, dark-haired one on the team, right? #345?"

Uh, no. Em is short and blonde. And her number is 346. (Actual numbers changed to protect the innocent, of course.)

Em overhead Baroy tell me about this, and oh. I know life is disappointment, and blahblahblahblahblah, but if any one of you could watch your child's face fall and her upper lip quiver, even if she manages to stiffen it within seconds, without your heart shattering...well, you're not me.

"Does that mean he was never there to scout me at all?" she asked.

"I don't know, hon," I replied.

Meanwhile, Baroy is sitting in his chair at his computer, and you can literally see the steam rising off of him. He's easily annoyed by incompetence or sloppiness under normal circumstances. Do something like this? Make a mistake AND disappoint his kid? As my friend A (one of the girlfriends I was IMing with while this went on) said, "You almost have to pity the guy."

(My other girlfriend, S, said, "No way. He should get the full Baroy." The full Baroy. Hee!)

Despite being furious, he managed to calm down enough to send a terse but emotionless email that told the guy what number Em was, then added: "Are you looking for not-Em, #345? I need to know immediately, because I already told Em she was invited to the tournament."

He then sat and simmered in anger and resentment for quite a while, while I put a very-subdued Em to bed.

This morning, however, the coachscoutguy replied to Baroy's email, saying, "I'll take her to the tournament, and I'll go see her team again this weekend." (We presume he meant in order to look at the other girl, who really is a great player.)

Baroy and I discussed our options, but decided to ask Em what she wanted to do at this juncture. Her answer? "I don't want to be on the team if I'm not who he wanted. He doesn't need to do that just to make me feel better."

I don't need to actually say, do I, how proud that made me? How mature that was? Seriously, I'm kvelling here.

The upshot of the story, by the way, is that Baroy responded and told the coachscoutguy what Em said, adding, "She's a good player, and one of the team's best, but doesn't want to be in a tournament because of a mistake. So here's what might be fair: Come to the game on Saturday, and watch her and not-Em play again. If you like what you see, take her. If not, she'll understand." He then offered to introduce coachscoutguy to not-Em's parents if coachscoutguy wanted.

Coachscoutguy's immediate reply was that that sounded good to him, and that he'd let Baroy know after the game Saturday. And there it stands for now.

You know what? On second thought, I'm proud of both of them. Because I know this wasn't any easier on Baroy than it was on Em. But they did me proud. Both of them.

God Has an Opinion on Soccer

This is Em's seventh year playing AYSO soccer. She's always been enthusiastic, and she never been a detriment to any team. But over the last couple of years she's really started to come into her own. Last year, for instance, she was asked--though as one of the last picked--to be on one of her division's All Star teams. This year, she's considered a shoe-in.

The problem is, this summer is her Bat Mitzvah, and that involves a whole lot of time and effort, especially starting after the new year. So when we signed her up for AYSO, I made a point of telling both her and Baroy (who's been the assistant coach on her last four teams and may enjoy the games and practices even more than she does) that there was going to be no All Stars this year. She needs to attend Saturday morning services at least twice a month, I pointed out. And there are often Sunday games as well, which interfere with Sunday-morning religious school. That wasn't such a big deal last year, but this year...She really needs to be serious about Hebrew School for just one more year, is all.

Everyone agreed. To my face.

But this season has been incredible for her. She's one of the top three players on her team; the one everyone counts on not so much to score (she scored for the first time this season today, as a matter of fact) but to get plays started, to execute good sharp passes, to play a smart and aggressive game. And so, as the season has worn on, there's been the more-frequent sighing about how soon it's all going to end, with beseeching looks cast in my direction. I was impervious to them. Note the tense there.

Last week, I was talking to our synagogue's rabbi, and I mentioned the post-season soccer moratorium. "Oh, that's sort of a shame," he said, and went on to talk about how he and his son (whose Bar Mitzvah was just two years ago) worked out some compromises that allowed him to play through most of his Bar Mitzvah training.

I mentioned this conversation to Baroy and Em during dinner the other night. "I still don't think All Stars is a good idea," I warned, "but IF we can talk to someone in advance, and IF they understand that Hebrew School comes first and she might have to miss some games along the way...MAYBE we can consider it."

Em looked much too excited, so I tried to talk her down. "I doubt that any coach will want to take on a player who can't fully commit," I warned her. "And like I said, I'm still not sure it's that good of an idea."

"Oh, but Rabbi wants me to play," she countered, a smile playing around her lips. "And that's practically the same thing as God wanting me to play."

I may have rolled my eyes at that. OK, I definitely rolled my eyes at that.

And then came today's soccer game.

I arrived a few minutes late, only to find Baroy grinning at me as I approached our side of the field. He came over to me and whispered, "There's a scout here, looking at Em. A scout from Sectionals."

Sectionals is the group above the 'regular' All Star division. While five girls from Em's team last year went to All Stars (a lot for one team, but still...), only one went to sectionals. And she was the kind of kid who made your mouth drop open when you watched her play.

"Really? A scout? Looking at Em?"

Turned out, he was there for her, and for one other girl on the team. I felt badly for her at first, since she was a little off her game (dealing with, um, ahem, some woman stuff). But then came the third quarter, which is when she scored. And in the fourth she executed a perfect throw-in (you don't often hear people on the sidelines commenting on how good a throw-in is, but this one got cheers), that turned into another goal. Her team won, 2-0.

Baroy didn't tell her about the scout until they came off the field, and you could see her eyes get big and excited. Then she started to laugh.

"Wow, Mom," she said, coming over to me. "There's a scout here from Sectionals and I scored for the first time this season? God must REALLY want me to play in the postseason."

I've gotta say, with all the evidence stacked up right now? It's hard to argue with that particular theology.

Push

I don't want to.

I don't feel well.

I don't feel well because I don't want to.

Lately, I'm finding it harder and harder (and I mean HARDER) to get past the part of me that rebels against almost any new or unusual or untried event or experience. Sure, I wanted to see Em play a 12-minute exhibition soccer game, with her team, on a full-size field during the local community college game's halftime this evening. But what if it's crowded, I asked myself throughout the week? (At a community college Friday-night soccer game?) Where will I park? (Um, one of the 75 parking lots on or around campus, perhaps?) How will I find the stadium? (The blinding lights? Just follow 'em.) How will I find the team once I get there? (Yeah, you're right. Hard to pick out 12 girls in blue uniforms on bleachers in a crowd of under 75 spectators.)

By the time I left work today, I was in full pout mode. My head hurt, my body ached, I only wanted to go home and go to bed. I knew I couldn't bail--Baroy, as the team's assistant coach, would have to go out onto the field during the halftime game, and he couldn't take N with him. But that doesn't mean I couldn't bitch and moan to myself all the way home, all the way through changing clothes. It doesn't mean I didn't curse under my breath when Baroy didn't pick up his cell phone when I called to complain about how icky I felt, and to try to talk him into dropping N home on the way to the game, so I could stay put. It doesn't mean I didn't curse out loud all the way to the pizza parlor where the team was having its pre-game dinner. And it doesn't mean that I didn't give in to all the stress I was feeling about the whole thing while driving Em over to the stadium, following Baroy and N, and ranting loudly the entire time about the stupid way he chose to go. (It was--I will give myself this--a very stupid way to go. Extra distance AND the worst traffic in the area. Still...in front of Em? I should be kicked.)

And, of course, all that angst was for naught. Once there, I gobbled up every second of the experience, especially the part where my kid--a kid with MY GENES, which I would have sworn to you were such completely ANTI-ATHLETIC genes that they would have had the power to SQUASH any athletic genes Baroy might try to pass along--arced an incredible shot at the goal, which the other team's goalie juuuuuuust managed to get a couple of fingers on and deflect. Even if there were only a few dozen folks there, it was still awesome to hear them shout for my girl, calling out, "Great shot, number 12!" In fact, when Baroy was ready to go, after the exhibition and during the college game's second half, I talked him into staying longer, so that Em could continue to hang out on the sidelines of the field with her teammates and act as ball girl, gathering up the soccer balls that went sailing past the goal every few minutes.

But that's not unusual, either. I'm always reluctant to go somewhere, but once I'm there--once I know that there aren't crowds likely to swallow me up, that I'm not going to be stuck in some panic-inducing, car-immobilizing traffic jam, that I'm not going to get lost in an unfamiliar place--I'm fine.

(If any of the things I fear do happen, however, all bets are off. Just ask my friends about the first year we went up to Big Bear during the Christmas holidays and I lost my MIND on the packed streets of the Village and pretty much simply BOLTED. Now, every year, I fight incipient panic attacks as the date for that annual-though-no-longer-at-Christmastime trip gets closer. Add to that the fact that there's really only one road up or down the mountain--a fact that fills me with a sense of claustrophobia I can barely stand to even write about here--and, well, all I can say is that if it weren't for the fact that it would almost literally kill my husband and kids to miss the trip, I'd probably never start up that mountain again. And yet, once I get there...it is BY FAR my favorite weekend of the year. Go figure.)

All of which leads me to...Nope. I got nothin'. I have no idea how to end this. It leads me to despair, I guess, at how this sort of over-reactivity only seems to get worse with age, not better. Because as I get older, I start to add new tricks to my get-out-of-uncomfortable-situations arsenal, the most recent being the Why should I do things that make me miserable? Haven't I earned the right by now to stick only to my comfort zone, if that's what makes me comfortable? whine.

And, sure, to some degree I have earned that right. But if I let myself exercise it all the time, or even close to as frequently as I'd like to, I'd wind up awfully close to what pretty much any armchair psychiatrist would be able to label as agoraphobia. Which makes me think that, for as long as I'm capable of pushing myself in the other direction, I need to keep on pushing.

Otherwise, one of these days, I'm going to miss seeing the goal my kid scores under the bright lights of a nearly-empty soccer field on a warm fall evening. Or, as would have happened tonight, I'll miss seeing her come oh-so-close, make a tiny moue of disappontment, and then get right back into the game.

She has so much to teach me.

The No-Time-For-An-Update Update

Em had an initially Very Disappointing Day today, wherein her soccer team lost its second playoff game in these double-elimination playoffs, ending their (really wonderful for many reasons) season. At the end of the game she was told by her coach that she had apparently missed the cutoff for the all-star league by just a couple of girls; he wasn't at the 'draft' because he was coaching their game, but the report he got didn't include her name.

So it was a double thrill when Coach D called tonight (and left a message on Baroy's cell, AND emailed Baroy as well) to tell Em that she had indeed made the team, and was she interested in playing for him during the All-Star season?

You could have read the fine print on a contract using the glow of delight from her face. Me, I was kind of looking forward to being done with soccer for the year. But I can't begrudge her this. She so loves playing this game, and to be singled out as an all-star, after being the highest-ranked of the younger half of the team...Like I said, I can't begrudge.

Go, All-Stars!

----------
I went to a short adult-ed class at my synagogue this morning, where we talked about Chanukah and its meaning and how to make it more meaningful, etc. At the end, I asked my rabbi about the whole new book thing, and it's official: I need to let it go.

Well, that's giving myself a little too little in the way of credit. What he actually said to me, in short, was that it was perfectly reasonable for agencies/groups/organizations to ask for new and unwrapped toys and even books. But he also said that it was perfectly reasonable for me to respond to that by saying, "In that case, I don't have anything to give you," and to go off and find a group that would be happy to take what I have to offer. And, most importantly, he said that while, yes, there is this commandment to give tzedakah (a Hebrew word which both does and doesn't mean charity), there is no commandment that says I have to give tzedakah to my school district's Healthy Start program. If what I have or want to give does not match up with what they need, I should move on. I shouldn't resent them, but neither should I feel badly for not doing it their way.

And so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let it go. I'm even going to try not to make a big (OK, bigger) deal over why I'm not giving to this specific toy and book drive. I'm just not going to give, and I'm going to try really, really hard not to assume that I'm being looked at as a cheap Jew for not giving. I will, instead, bring my gently used books to the places my rabbi suggested today, and if I am asked by anyone at school, I will say that I've already done my charitable giving for the holiday season and leave it at that.

Or, at least, that's the plan.

Now, if I can only stop myself from snarling at the gay-hating evangelical Salvation Army crews outside every single frigging supermarket in the world right now, I'll be damned near eligible for sainthood. If Jews had saints, I mean. And if saints were allowed to curse like sailors.

There's No Crying in Soccer!

Em grew out of her 'crying at the drop of a hat' phase later than a lot of the other girls I know, but grow out of it she did.

Except when it comes to soccer.

She came home from soccer practice on Wednesday crying. She cried at the beginning of the fourth quarter of today's game. She cried at the end of the game at well.

None of these were for the reasons you might think.

Wednesday's crying was because a Major League Soccer player had come as part of an AYSO 'perk' to coach her team. But he was hard on the girls, yelling at them a lot. Still, that wasn't what made Em cry. "I like the drills Coach D usually does," she said as the tears spilled over when I asked her what was wrong. "All this guy did was basic passing. I didn't feel like I got a good workout tonight."

The crying at the beginning of the fourth quarter today was because Coach D decided to put her in goal at the last minute, since the team was ahead 5-0, and he wanted to give the 'regular' goalie a chance to play some offense for once. Em had played goalie in the second quarter--a position she's been scared of ever since getting kicked in the chest during a game when she was eight, a kick that was so hard you could see the cleat pattern in the bruises left behind--and had had to sit out third quarter (each girl has to sit out one quarter if all 12 girls are present at the game). At first I assumed she was crying because she was scared of playing goalie again. But, instead, as she sobbed into my neck, it was because "it's boring playing goalie; I want to be DOING something. I have all this energy, and I won't get to burn it off in the goal."

The crying at the end of the game had me totally flummoxed. After all, her team had won, 6-1.

"What is the matter?" I asked, as she buried her face in chest, trying to hide her tears from her teammates.

"They scored their first goal of the season on ME," she wailed. [Not true; this was game three, and they had apparently scored a goal in game one, though I didn't know that at the time.]

"But you stopped a whole bunch of balls, and that one was a perfect kick. Nobody could have stopped it."

"That's not true," she insisted. "I should have stopped it. I could have!"

"Only if you were superhuman," I said. "It was shoulder high, shot across the net, and went right into the corner. There are professional players who wouldn't have been able to stop that ball!"

But she wasn't buying it, at least not then. [Several hours later, as she helped me cook dinner, she admitted, "I realize now that I did a pretty good job as goalie today...though I'm still mad that they scored on me."]

So here's the thing: I know the crying isn't a good thing. And I know that to most other people, to most of the other parents on the team certainly, it looks like immaturity and poor sportsmanship. But can I just say? In some ways, it makes me really happy, and even proud. It makes me happy that she enjoys this game so much. She's not crying about having to go out there and get dirty and sweaty; she's crying because she's not getting to go out there and get dirty and sweaty enough. And I am proud of her fierce competitive spirit; the fact that she gets angry at herself for what she perceives as letting her team down, or not being the very best that she can be. She doesn't complain about the other girls on her team missing a shot or letting one past and into the goal; in fact, she's the first one to run over and pat them on the back and tell them, "Don't worry about it," or "Nice try!" It's only when she falls short of her own standards that she lets it all get to her.

Now if only I can get her to give herself a leeeetle bit of a break...

Missing the Entitlement Gene

We're on spring break this week, and we signed Em up for a UK Soccer Camp thingy at a local park at her request. When I went to pick her up yesterday after her first three-hour session, she looked gloomy and annoyed. Turns out, she's in a group of 7, 8, 9, and 10 year olds, and found much of the instruction to be well under her ability level. Plus, she complained that during the scrimmage they did, the older kids on the other team wouldn't pass to the little kids, whereas her team played "fair" and, consequently, got trounced.

I suggested that she could talk to her dad about it, and that he would probably be happy to ask the counselors/coaches tomorrow if she might be moved up into the 11-16 group. When we got home, I brought it up with Baroy, who said he'd certainly be willing to do that. But Em looked distinctly uncomfortable, and suddenly began talking about all the things she'd enjoyed that morning. Finally, she just said, "I don't think it's a good idea for you to talk to the coaches, Daddy. It wouldn't be fair to all the other 10-year-olds. They probably feel the same way I do, and they won't get to move up."

When she left the room, I looked at Baroy, my mouth agape. "What was THAT all about?" I asked, in wonderment. "Is it possible that our child does NOT believe the world revolves around her and only her? Is it possible that she believes that rules apply to her as well as to others? Is it possible that she doesn't feel entitled to special treatment, just by being who she is?"

"I know!" Baroy returned. "Where have we gone wrong?"

Our Undefeated U-10 Girls Soccer Team

...isn't so undefeated any more.

It was the last game of the regular season. There are 30 teams in our division. There were only two teams going into today who were undefeated...our team, and the team we were playing.

Now theirs is the only undefeated team in the division.

But damn, Em and the rest of those girls played hard. I'm really proud of them.

Now, on to the playoffs. (Which start next Saturday and for which we have no schedule. Which is a huge rant that I'm not going to bother with, because, really, it's kinda mundane. Suffice it to say, it's hard to plan your weekends when you have no idea when your kid is going to be required to spend a couple of hours on a soccer field. And my weekends, they need planning.)

Undefeated

Em's U-10 soccer team--under the same coaching staff (with Baroy as assistant coach) as last year--is 7-0-1 this year. Last year? 1-7-2.

To say that the coaches are happier with this year's team is an understatement. But I have to tell you; I'm finding this year's games so much more nervewracking. Last year, anything good that happened--from them heading in the right direction after the switch at halftime, to someone not lifting a foot during a throw-in--was met with huge cheers. There just wasn't that much to celebrate. Worrying about whether they'd win...well, it wasn't worth throwing a lot of energy in that direction.

But this year. This year, they RAWK. They are one of the tiniest collections of 8-, 9-, and 10-year-old girls I've ever seen. But they are fast, and they are strong, and they are GOOD. Their footwork is AWESOME. And they PASS to each other. They have an incredible bond; they giggle and chatter during practices, but when it's game time, they GO. (And Em, for the record, has been ALL OVER that field this year. Her strength is truly in defense; she loves playing defense, and has developed an awesome foot that can clear almost any shot that comes within her reach. She's also scored four goals this year...though three of them were in one game. I am exceptionally proud of her. And she is having an absolute, unadulterated BLAST.)

So, why nervewracking? Because the last couple of games--after a few that were embarrassingly one-sided--have been nail biters. And this year, a loss...well, it doesn't actually MEAN anything in the Big Wide World sense of meaning something. But these girls are seriously excited about what they've accomplished, and being undefeated is a huge deal to them. Today's game was a 0-0 tie until near the end of the fourth quarter, when our team finally managed to both penetrate their defense AND get a shot off. (They were doing well at the former, but having trouble with the latter...) Our sideline absolutely ERUPTED. I can't remember the last time I screamed that loudly...or the last time I ran down a row of adults, high-fiving everyone in sight. (Yes, I am a soccer mom. And yes, I'm embarrassing. But I'm not embarrassed. And, trust me. I wasn't the only one whooping it up.)

Still, I swear. The pressure that had built up until that point? All I could think was, "I need a Xanax," followed swiftly by, "Did I just think about taking a Xanax to deal with the pressures of a tied soccer game played by girls under the age of 10?" Clearly, what I really need is an antipsychotic.

Damn, soccer is fun.