August was such an incredibly packed month, it's hard to know where to start. Let's just say I now have a daughter in junior high school - or as I like to call it, Drama City - and we have been busy learning new schedules and where rooms like F3 and C2 are, figuring out how to fit everything into her backpack on a daily basis and trying to remember who is in which class with her in case she needs to call someone for a missed homework assignment.
School takes up much of our time and what's left is being devoted right now to soccer.
Actually, soccer has been dominant for the past couple of months, with two to three practices a week and, now, weekend tournaments and soon Saturday games.
Many of you already know that I've become somewhat of a soccer mom over the last few years, with my 12-year-old progressing from recreational league play to all-star mini season teams to competitive travel.
This year, she and her teammates are playing Under 14 Division 3 ball, with the vast majority of them 12-year-olds, along with a couple of 13- and 14-year-olds in the mix. They decided to call themselves the Oakdale Insanity, which was fine by some of us parents, since we decided we could probably qualify as the Asylum.
The girls got to pick their own numbers and there are a few strange ones, more suited to football players than soccer girls what with 64, 72, 76 and 80 among those mixed in with the more traditional 2, 5, 7 and 11. We even had two 13's at the start before we figured out we shouldn't have two girls with the same number. That would just get confusing.
Our first tournament wasn't too bad, with a tie and a couple of close losses. Our second time out, things didn't go quite as well. Two out of our three games were still very close but the disheartening thing was the loss of one of our older girls (and team co-captain) to a serious ankle injury early in the very first game and having two other players nursing sore - later determined to be broken - wrists. Anybody that didn't get broken there got roughed up a bit, with bumps and bruises all the way around.
We've had to put so many kids on the disabled list so early, we're thinking about changing our name to the Oakdale Infirmary and getting an ambulance for our team bus.
School takes up much of our time and what's left is being devoted right now to soccer.
Actually, soccer has been dominant for the past couple of months, with two to three practices a week and, now, weekend tournaments and soon Saturday games.
Many of you already know that I've become somewhat of a soccer mom over the last few years, with my 12-year-old progressing from recreational league play to all-star mini season teams to competitive travel.
This year, she and her teammates are playing Under 14 Division 3 ball, with the vast majority of them 12-year-olds, along with a couple of 13- and 14-year-olds in the mix. They decided to call themselves the Oakdale Insanity, which was fine by some of us parents, since we decided we could probably qualify as the Asylum.
The girls got to pick their own numbers and there are a few strange ones, more suited to football players than soccer girls what with 64, 72, 76 and 80 among those mixed in with the more traditional 2, 5, 7 and 11. We even had two 13's at the start before we figured out we shouldn't have two girls with the same number. That would just get confusing.
Our first tournament wasn't too bad, with a tie and a couple of close losses. Our second time out, things didn't go quite as well. Two out of our three games were still very close but the disheartening thing was the loss of one of our older girls (and team co-captain) to a serious ankle injury early in the very first game and having two other players nursing sore - later determined to be broken - wrists. Anybody that didn't get broken there got roughed up a bit, with bumps and bruises all the way around.
We've had to put so many kids on the disabled list so early, we're thinking about changing our name to the Oakdale Infirmary and getting an ambulance for our team bus.
