Weekend Ketchup

Over the weekend I tried to catch up.  Not to be confused with ketchup.  Or even catsup.

In between the laundry, dishes, and the boatloads of stuff I had to sort, organize, and put away, I attended Lexee's last football game of the season, and Shilo's swim meet.

The football game was kind of a big deal, at least for me.  Lex has assured us that she will not be cheering next year.  That means Bill and I may not be attending a high school football game for a long time.  Bummer.  So we had to do all the embarrassing picture-taking and cheer-yelling possible, so as to ingrain the memory into the deepest recesses of our minds.

Which was totally unappreciated by our awesome daughter.

Okay, I'll admit it.  We're embarrassing.  But we definitely add the element of fun to the hum-drum crowd shivering in the cold, silently watching as our team gets throttled.  I think the others girls are secretly jealous.  The football players probably even wish their parents were so exuberantly cheering them in their efforts, no matter how futile.

There's always basketball season.  Enclosed space and larger crowds.  Perfect.

Saturday was Shi's swim meet and another opportunity to improve her results.  This time, there were nerves and tears involved.  

Emotional daughter:  "Can I just swim at practice, and not go to the meets?"

Unmoved mother:  "Uh, NO."

Being a mom is just plain hard and cruel sometimes.  Like when Mauri kept passing me notes in our Stake Conference yesterday.  We were late (my fault), and sitting in the very back of the wood-floored cultural hall in what I lovingly term "the nursery," a few rows in front of the stage.  Towards the latter half of the conference, Mauri decided that she would rather be sitting on the stage.  She could see the screen so much better from that vantage point.  She started the note passing... I was sitting on the row in front of her, since, when you are late, you can never find 6 seats together.

"Mom I can't see can we move up on that one thing the stage"

"No. :-( We are staying where we are.  You can still hear just fine. :-)"

"then I want you to close your eyes the hool (whole) time or maybe I can go sit on the stage, on the end."

"I would like you to take notes!  So you can share what you learned today at church."

"Can I take notes up there?  You could see me.  I will write a lot up there!"

"No."

"Please!  Please!  Please!  Please!  Please!  I will be on the edge!"

"No."

"Lexee said it is almost over so for the end of it can I sit up there?"

Then Shilo got into the action:

"Mauri, Mom has said no and she is reading scriptures so we should not disturb her."

Then Lexee:

"Mauri, we only have like 15 minutes left... just stay here... I will scratch your back."

"No I want to go up there."

"But you can't."

"But I want to."

"Maybe next year :-)"

"NO!"

"YES!  Now listen because Mom and Dad are going to ask what you learned!  Only ten more minutes!"

"I did not learn anything, I could not SEE!"

"You do not need to see to listen!  AMEN!  I love you Mar-Mar!"

I have the whole conversation written out in Mauri's notebook.  She never got to sit on the stage.  I'm such a mean mom.

Back to the meet:

Shilo improved her times in every event, even if she threw-up in her mouth and had to swallow it at the beginning of this race.  I know, disgusting.  But it only goes to show how sometimes you have to:

Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.  What do we do?  We swim, swim...

So there's the weekend.  In a big, discombobulated blob of ketchup.  Or is that catsup?