A Soccer Family

Soccer in our family runs deep. For a few years all four kids played soccer. It was crazy hectic with all of the different soccer practices, games, and coaches. Many times the kids would have overlapping practice schedules or game schedules and would require us utilizing another family to take one of the kids to practice (or sometimes vice versa when their family needed help with a ride). Because a lot of us had multiple children that were around the same age it was not unheard of for two of my kids to have sibling friends on their respective teams. This meant that our families would inadvertently spend a lot of time together season in and season out. As time went on a group of us became close. Most of these families were centered around Josh's team. This could be because Josh played with the same group of boys since he was 6. One of the boys, his best friend Logan, he began playing with when he was 4. Our soccer friends hung out together on occasion away from soccer and did things such a camp together. (Although our family only camped once with them due to scheduling conflicts the others camped multiple times together.) Over time we became family. We learned to depend on one another, lean  on one another, play with one another, and laugh with one another. Just like in a family, some of us were closer than others. And sometimes there were squabbles among members. Some families chose to leave to purse other ventures for their children as the years passed, but for the most part we stayed together as one unit with all of the dysfunction that a normal family has.

I loved my soccer family. A lot. I still do. Perhaps because this was my first soccer family I will always cherish this group of people. Perhaps because I just love the people they were/are I would have loved them this much if they hadn't been my first soccer family. I will never know the answer to that.  

When we moved to Las Cruces Josh was the first to settle down on a team. I'd like to think that this is because he is the most passionate about soccer and would have been lost without the backbone that a soccer team provides in his life. The first family we met, the Meza's, were/are amazing. They were so warm and welcoming when we first came. Mr. Meza seems to know everybody in town and was eager to get us acclimated to everyone he knew. He was a true blessing those first few months in a new town. His wife was equally warm and I am so grateful that I got to know her. She is great with my kiddos. This family reminds me in so many ways of the Boorman family whom I love very much. They are very family centered and have a love for soccer just as our family does. Their son reminds us a lot of Josh's best friend Logan. 

Through the new soccer team that Josh is on we have weathered some storms that have drawn us all closer. From Josh busting out both his knees within 6 months of each other to his first team imploding due to poor leadership from the original coach. As parents we have had to make sense of some pretty crazy things, but we have been all the better for it. And just like that, as I look around me now, I see parents that I have come to depend on. I see families that I hang out with outside of soccer and I see my kids becoming close with teammates and their siblings. 

Now only three of our kids play soccer, but life is still just as crazy as soccer practices have become more frequent as my boys age. I am finding that siblings are once again making up multiple teams of my kiddos.

 Andy has (FINALLY) found a team that is truly a perfect fit for him with wonderful coaches who take on kids just like Andy, the kids that no one else wants. He is happy on this team because the kids are nice to him. He no longer feels like an outcast as he has all so often before since moving here. He feels like an equal among his teammates and that hasn't happened yet down here. It is nice to see him happy. It is nice to see him welcomed with open arms and to see a coach who appreciates and values his work ethic and good moral character and wants to reward him for those things. This new coach is trying to nurture the leader in Andy and is using him to help those kids who need moral encouragement.

 Elizabeth has also joined a team this spring. She began practices this past week and has jumped right in among these girls. Her coach is a perfect fit for her. He is very knowledgeable and very patient, but also knows how to correct Elizabeth when she gets too far out of line. Some of the girls on her team are homeschooled, which is pretty neat, and the cooler part is that we have never crossed paths with these families before which makes me wonder how many other homeschoolers are out there that we have yet to meet. Elizabeth is doing well even after only two practices. I am excited to see her play this season.

 Josh's team is awesome. They just took first place in a tournament in Phoenix, AZ this past weekend. Josh scored a goal on a PK. His coaches having him playing a center defensive midfield position so he does not get the ability to score very often. I miss that, but he is very much needed where he plays so I understand why he is where he is. His team is very, very good. Every member on the team has a part to play and all the players fit together like a beautiful puzzle. Some players, like Josh, make up a bigger piece of the puzzle as he gets a large chunk of playing time, but all of the players are equally important - even the smaller pieces as they help to make the team complete. I have had three different parents approach me within the past month - two of whom I do not know very well yet - who told me how grateful they were that Josh was back on the field this winter after healing from his last blown out knee. They mentioned that Josh brings a leadership aspect to the team that is missing when he is not able to play. One of them mentioned that his skill in the midfield position was missing when he was injured. These compliments meant the world to me because his team is so good that I thought that his absence when injured wouldn't be felt very much. I guess I was wrong. It is nice to know that others value his ability as a player as much as I do. 

My soccer family in Ohio was super important to me, but I also had my family to rely on. Out here in the Southwest I have just my soccer family and homeschooling peeps to walk me through the trials and tribulations of life, and also to celebrate our family's joys as well. I have come to depend on my soccer family all that much more. And even with the squabbles among members I find myself falling in love all over again - in a different way for sure, but it's a love all the same. It is with these families that my kids will create memories with. It is with these families I will create memories with. 

The memories, the love, the time spent together all seem strangely familiar yet uniquely different.

My Word of the Year

It has become a popular idea among the blogging community to pick a word that a person will focus on throughout the year. I thought this was a cool idea, but didn't really have a word that I wanted to focus on and so I chose nothing. 

Now that I am getting back on my feet again a word popped into my mind that I think perfectly suits me and what I need to accomplish this year. The word is: 

Because I tend to be an all or nothing kinda gal moderation eludes me on a regular basis. I am going at life at either 150% or 10%. There is usually not an in between. But living this way is not healthy for me at all and I need to do my very best to be aware of my inclination of living my life at full speed or fully stopped. I need to live in a state of moderation whether it is in regards to education, food, housekeeping, homemaking, exercising, eating well, etc...

And so that is what I will be focusing on this year: moderation. 

FYI: 

I am giving up Facebook for Lent this year, so if you happen to read my blogs via Facebook please know that I will not be posting anything through Facebook until after Easter, but I will still be writing blogs. If you want to keep updated on my zany life please do so through: momofmanygreggs.blogspot.com

A Best Friend That Became A Son & Brother

I have always been a firm believer in the mantra 'family first'. I used to believe that family was family and friends were friends and no matter how close you were with your friends  they were never to be placed in the family category.

 All of that changed when I met Josh's friend Boorman. 

Boorman has been friends with Josh since they were about 6. They played on the same soccer team under Boorman's dad. They became best friends when they entered into the fourth grade and shared a class with one of their favorite (and mine too) teachers. They became like brothers at the end of 5th grade and were inseparable by the beginning of 6th grade. Boorman  also befriended Andy and pretty soon Andy and he were just about as tight as Josh and he were 

By the summer of 2014 Boorman was either at my house or my boys were at his house or they were up at Bolich (a middle school in town) playing soccer with their other buddies.Every single day they were together. I sometimes wonder if there were some weeks that summer when Boorman didn't sleep over my house more than he was at his own house. Having him at my house was just like having my own children there. He fit right in. 

And over time, I began to love Boorman as my own son. I still do. He is a great kid. He is polite, respectful, and kind. He is great with my girls. He is protective of my boys. He is loyal. Moving away from Boorman has been harder than I ever imagined. I know that he misses my boys very much. My boys miss him (and his family) very much too. 

Part of me would love to stay in Las Cruces forever. But another part of me cannot wait to leave so that we may perhaps move closer to Boorman and he can visit us. 

I miss seeing his head pop up into my kitchen window, as he would often do, right before he came in through the back door of our old house. I miss his sly little smile when he had been mischievous. I miss hearing his now deep voice calling me mom. I missing hearing the boys argue over who the best soccer player in the world is. I miss hearing them giggle when they came up with something clever and entertaining that only teenage boys would find funny. 

I thought that the ache of missing him would dull over time. It has not. I still miss him as much today as I did the day we moved away. Maybe even more so.

I never knew that I could love someone outside of my own family as much as I love him. The lines of friend and family member have blurred so much with Boorman that I can no longer tell where those lines begin and end. To me, he is just my son. My son from another mother, but my son none-the-less. And I know that his mother thinks of my boys just the same. 

I know that Boorman is a friend for life. No, he is more than that, he is the brother that my boys got to choose as one of their own. And I know that Boorman feels very much the same way. How special is that?

I cannot wait until the day when I can see him on a regular basis again. It will be just like old times. And that is something I very much cherish. 

Looking Up

I am feeling quite a bit better. Have you ever gotten a really bad cold that it puts you down for the count for several days and when you start to feel better you are more cautious about the choices you make in your day or how harried you allow you day to be because you don't quite feel like yourself yet? That is how I am feeling except I wasn't sick with a cold and I don't want to go back to feeling like I was right before I went down for the count mentally.

I am taking each day 1 day at a time. I have only mild plans each day and I slowly accomplish those limited tasks. I am not filling my day with a huge 'to do' list. I am not allowing my day to become consumed by what we are learning, eating, and how much we are cleaning up after ourselves. This doesn't mean that nothing is getting done around here because it certainly is, but I am just not as consumed by my 'to do' list and the expectations I placed on my shoulders to get those things done followed by the immense guilt I had if I did not get certain items crossed off to my satisfaction.

In hindsight, I cannot believe that I did not have this mini-breakdown earlier. I really cannot. The amount of stuff I was trying to carry and the pressure that I was putting on myself to get those things done was immense. And the whirlwind that I got myself caught up in was tornadic in nature. Looking back on how caught up I was in a life that wasn't even my own makes me want to cry. It makes me want to cry because I have so much to offer this world as me, and yet I allowed myself to create this image of what I thought I was supposed to look like/be instead of just being me. And the thing is no one put this pressure on me except for myself. I had this image of what a stay-at-home homeschooling Christian mama should look like, and she looked nothing like who I authentically am and so I tried to change myself into this incredibly unrealistic idea of perfection that I will never be because: a.) that woman is not the soul who resides inside of me and b.) I am a human being who will never, ever be perfect. And the scary thing is is that this whirlwind has been months in the making. It's not like this breakdown occurred because of some major disaster that suddenly popped up in my life. It was quite the opposite actually.  This weight has been slowly gaining momentum as I allowed myself to be overtaken by images and ideas about the person I thought I was supposed to be. The roles I thought I was supposed to fulfill. Looking back on it all it seems absolutely crazy that I could have gotten myself so absorbed in this false image of who I am, but I did. I am just thankful that the spell was broken (as hard as it was for me to go through) and I can now get back to being just me - not some person of who I think I should be.

So, what now? Well, I don't really know. I will tell you that I have stopped reading just about every one of the blogs I was reading on an almost daily basis. And that has been a very good thing for me. For once in my life, I don't have a plan. Right now I am just spending this time breathing deeply - if that makes any sense. I don't have a menu planned out or a school schedule planned out or a house keeping schedule planned out. We just eat what we have, we do the school work that is needed, and we clean up after ourselves without succumbing to a schedule. I am trying to learn to sit with the imperfection of my days. I am trying to be okay with having an imperfect menu, and an imperfect lesson plan, and an imperfect housekeeping schedule. It hasn't been easy, but it has been a worthwhile lesson. I find myself saying what seems like a hundred times a day, "God, please be near me.", which of course is silly because God is always near me, but this simple prayer helps me to remember that I don't have to go it alone. It also helps me to remember that I am not perfect. I cannot be perfect because I am a mere human.

Once I get truly back on my feet again I know that I will begin to have plans again. And inevitably I will have 'to do' lists because that is just a part of who I am. The catch of the whole matter is that I just need to make sure that the 'to do' lists that I am creating are lists that are filled with items that are authentically mine and not filled with items that from a check list of the person I think I should be.