Random Notes from Suburbia: Pi, 'Dogs in the City,' Overzealous Sports Mom & Being Tardy

Pi in the Sky

As part of a school math competition to see how many digits of pi students could accurately remember, The Girl was able to recall, hold onto your hats, 102 of them. Seriously. I have no idea how she did it. I have trouble remembering where I leave my car in the grocery store parking lot. I'm not all that far removed from being the lady who frantically hunts around everywhere for her glasses only to have someone point out that they're
perched atop her head.

This was a reason for celebration and parental pride, at least initially, that, with seeming ease, The Girl could rattle off all those numbers. She even fared well when her brothers asked her to name random digits like the 22nd or 47the digit and they checked her accuracy.

Then the situation took a sinister turn.

"Hey, I'll bet she could memorize your credit card numbers," The Eldest Boy said as he raised his eyebrows.

Uh oh.

'Dogs in the City:' My Summer Shame

I hate -- I mean hate, hate, hate, hate -- reality TV shows. Other than the first two seasons of Survivor which aired some 10+ years ago, I haven't been a regular viewer of any reality programs because I find them to be 1) contrived 2) encourage bad behavior to nab ratings and all the accouterments accompanying reality show success (i.e. -- Snooki on the best seller list) 3) are wildly manipulated by the shows' producers and are in no way "reality" and 4) take prime-time slots and jobs away from screenwriters and all the other professionals who put together scripted television shows.

That being said . . . before a Celtics game aired the other night (Go Green y'all), I was flipping through the stations and happened upon this new CBS show Dogs in the City. And, I'm ashamed to admit, I liked it, given that I'm so into all things canine these days. (For those of you wondering whether I've dropped the notion of getting a second dog to join Max our Havanese/Wheaten, I haven't, much to The Spouse's chagrin.)

Not only did I fall in love with the dogs on the silly show, but I learned a few things about pet training and was astonished by the idiocy of some of the dogs' owners. The woman who brought her dog to work with her after the dog had bitten a number of people and regularly lunged at her employees when they walked into her office? Really, that was a question, whether that dog belonged in an office setting?

Dogs in the City, I'm afraid to say, is destined to become my summer TV shame. Who can resist a skateboarding bulldog named Beefy who has separation anxiety?

Overzealous Sports Mom

Scene: An afternoon lacrosse game being played by boys, ages 10-12.

Featuring: A woman who was, I'm guessing, the mother or close female relative of the goalie for the opposing team. Or else she was a complete lunatic who happened to know the name of the goalie and felt perfectly comfortable screaming at him.

Some of the woman's best quotes, bellowed loudly from her comfortable perch on her folding chair on the sidelines, included:

"[NAME OMITTED]! Come on! Block that [NAME OMITTED]!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Toughen up!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Don't flinch at the ball! You're the goalie! That's what the pads are for!"

Going through my head: "Hey lady, why don't you go stand in the goal, wearing lacrosse pads, and let me hurl hard lacrosse balls at your head and see if you flinch! He's a kid for god's sake!"

I think this lady needs to watch the video below, about one high school athlete helping out another at a state championship meet to remind herself of why we have kids participate in sports: To build character, learn teamwork and create the good, healthy habits of staying physically active. It's not about berating and harassing from the cheap seats.

 

Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet that the woman who was yelling all of that garbage at the pediatric goalie wouldn't be at all impressed with how the high school runner helped out another, which is a sad, sad commentary of where youth sports parents are today.

Being Tardy

The Eldest Boy was participating in an event where the school band was going to be performing "The Star Spangled Banner," among other tunes, which was a very good thing, except that the band was performing at an event about 45 minutes or so away from our house. And we had to get there in rush hour traffic. And The Girl, The Youngest Boy and I had to wait for The Spouse to get home from work -- battling through rush hour traffic -- BEFORE jumping into the car to drive to The Eldest Boy's event.

We arrived just AFTER his band completed their musical performance. Oh yeah, I got your Parents of the Year right here buddy.

Image credits: This web site and Brian Friedman/CBS.

Quick Hits: Remember the Cleats, 'League of Their Own,' Dad-Centric Book & Summer Camp

Cleat Check

Note to self: Ask the kids if they have their cleats and other sports equipment BEFORE driving a half-hour to a game.

It isn't all that fun to race home in order to pick up the forgotten item(s) and then be hounded by panicked cell phone calls and texts as you're making your way back to the field and hoping you don't get a speeding ticket.

A League of Their Own

My campaign to cultivate feminists in my household continued as I showed the kids the movie A League of Their Own, about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the first professional women's baseball league started during World War II.

Love this movie. Makes me cry every time.

The Girl said she found it "inspiring," particularly because, as she said, "If they could do that back then [become respected athletes despite naysayers], girls can do it now."

Read Father's Day

I just finished the new book by Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, called Father's Day, about a cross-country road trip he took with one of his adult sons who had suffered brain damage during a traumatic, extremely premature birth. And while I'll write a longer piece about the book later, suffice is to say that it's heart-rending, poignant and a total page-turner.

Summer Camps

For the first time, the three kids have actually said they want to go to a day camp or an activity this summer. They usually want nothing to do with these sorts of things so when they first mentioned it, I did nothing about it. Zip. Nada. Just nodded and continued on with what I was doing.

Only they haven't stopped inquiring. They, apparently, do want to go to something. Is it too late to sign them up for anything? Is this like trying to start and finish your Christmas shopping on December 24?

Image credit: IMDB.

Once More with Feeling: Year-Round Sports Specialization Isn't Good for Kids

Opting not to allow the Picket Fence Post kids to specialize in one sport or play a single sport year-round hasn’t made me a lot of friends in youth sports.


Image credit: New York Times

Though we’ve been pressured from time to time to permit The Girl or The Eldest Boy to play indoor soccer in the winter – after having played soccer in the fall AND before playing soccer in the spring – I have politely declined, even when it’s been subtly suggested that by keeping them out of the indoor soccer racket (and by not additionally signing them up to also play on private club teams) might put them at a disadvantage when it comes time to place them on competitive teams. (Disclosure: The Eldest Boy did play indoor soccer one year but only because he wasn't playing spring soccer right afterward.)

The way I see it is this: I’m the one who's looking out for my children's health in the long-term, for their whole lives, not just for one season or one year. The youth sports organizations are not. (After The Girl’s lengthy bout with an ankle injury which required physical therapy and acupressure in order to overcome, I don’t want to risk her sustaining a repetitive injury on that ankle by playing one sport non-stop or consecutive seasons.)

I've been going by what I’ve read over the years from physicians who say that it’s not good for growing children to specialize in sports and play one sport without break, noting that even professional athletes get time off from their chosen sport. The recommendations have been for children to change it up and to play a variety of sports that use different muscles so that’s what we’ve tried to do with the Picket Fence Post kids, except when it comes to youth hockey because the season lasts for freakin’ ever, from August to April (which is one of my major problems with the league).

Then I read about a new study which found that children, who were thought to not be at risk for injury to their anterior cruciate ligament (the ACL, “the main ligament that stabilizes the knee joint” the New York Times helpfully explained), have been tearing their ACLs at alarmingly increasing rates. Why? Dr. J. Todd Lawrence, an orthopedic surgeon from Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital who studied ACL tears, offered this explanation to the Times:

“I think it’s primarily because kids are out there trying to emulate professional athletes. You see these very young athletes playing sports at an extremely intense, competitive level. Kids didn’t play at that level 20 years ago. They didn’t play one sport year-round.”

Studying pre-adolescents who were treated at his hospital’s emergency room for ACL and meniscus tears, Lawrence found that “most of the ACL tears that were treated at Children’s Hospital and picked up by this study . . . also involved a simultaneous meniscus tear, an indication of just how much wrenching and grinding the knee had undergone. Injury patterns have changed . . . because childhood sports have changed.”

Why does it matter if children tear their ACLs? Because previous studies of athletes who have sustained this type of injury found that within 12-14 years of the injury “51 percent of the female players and 41 percent of the men had developed severe arthritis in the injured knee,” the Times reported. If a kid is 10 when this happens, the Times said that means half of the girls could have an arthritic knee by age 25.

Here’s what Lawrence recommended:

“Encourage kids to play multiple sports and not to do any one sport year-round, and especially not when they’re 5 or 6, or even 9 or 10. They’re kids. Let them play and have fun, like kids.”

In my house, he's preaching to the choir.

Image credit: Richard Patterson/New York Times.

A Long Week of Melodrama: iPod Through Laundry, Running Over a Xylophone, Tryouts & Dress Shopping

One of my friends has likened my family to the Dunphys from Modern Family and, after several antics this week, that sounds about right . . .

Clean iPod

The Girl left her iPod in her jeans pocket. Again. It went through the laundry (both washer and dryer). Again.

As The Spouse and I tried to go to sleep last night, I heard loud banging inside the cycling dryer which I suspected was likely someone’s iPod. The Spouse groaned, hauled himself out of bed and went downstairs to see if I was right. When he came back, he had The Girl’s super-hot/fresh-from-the-dryer iPod in his hands. He added that he’d found a rock rattling around insider dryer as well. No clue who was carrying a rock around in his or her pants. But I don't think I want to know.

This morning the iPod was able to keep a charge and play music, but the screen looked a little funky. How many times 1) Is this going to happen in our house (there have been four other incidents of iPods in the laundry prior to this one) and 2) How much washing and drying can an iPod take before it dies a sad little death?

Dragging Things Out

Things were a tad chaotic on Wednesday morning as I was scrambling, trying to get the kids ready for me to drive them to school early so The Youngest Boy could make his before-school band lessons. In the chaos, The Youngest Boy rolled his ginormous xylophone – in its brand, spankin’ new bag that was a pain in the neck for The Spouse to get from the music store folks as the other bag's wheels were busted – out into the garage and left it behind my SUV. And didn’t tell anybody.

I, of course, had no freakin’ idea that the pricey instrument was back there and proceeded to exit out of the driveway once all three kids were safely buckled in. It was only the frantic waving and shouting of my next door neighbor, “There’s something under your car!” that got me to stop, get out of the car and see the xylophone under the vehicle.

Luckily, only the new bag was damaged in the incident, though it looks as though a rabid animal went at it in a fury. When I told The Spouse about my dragging the xylophone down the driveway, I heard his head explode over the phone lines. And this was all before I'd had my coffee. Not pretty.

Trying Tryouts

The middle schoolers just wrapped up two tryout sessions a piece in their efforts to attempt to make their respective seventh grade travel basketball teams. What has that meant for the Picket Fence Post family? Lots of dropping one kid off, returning to pick that kid up then dropping the second one off, later driving back to pick up the second one, sometimes having to leave dinner on the table and drag The Youngest Boy with me while I cart his siblings around. One night, The Eldest Boy had a soccer practice, raced home, showered, changed and went to hoops tryouts, came home and worked on homework. (The Spouse has been partially available to lend a transportation hand.)

Now the wait begins. Did they make a travel team or did they get cut? (Last year one of them made a travel team, the other didn’t.) If they made it, are any of their friends on the team?

Another big question this year: Coaching. The Spouse has volunteered to coach for both kids should they make the travel teams. *smacking hand on forehead* I don’t know whether to hope they make it or hope that they don't so I'll have a mildly less stressful winter. (If the kids don't make the travel teams, they'll still play in-town hoops. If you make a travel team, you have to play on both that travel team AND an in-town team. Yes, I know, we're crazy for even letting them tryout.)

Dressing the Daughter

Thank God for a helpful salesclerk (yes there are still a few of them out there) at a department store at a nearby mall. Without her help I doubt I would’ve found a dress for The Girl to wear to the bat mitzvah she’ll be attending this weekend, without having some big argument with her or without enduring oodles of tension like the icy vibe I got from another mother-daughter combo who were shopping at the same time we were.

The dress department salesclerk selected a bunch of cute dresses – ones I would’ve never in a million years picked out because I had trouble envisioning The Girl inside of any of them – for The Girl to try on. It was stunning to see her in grown-up dresses, and totally rock them by the way.

I credit the saleswoman’s spot-on taste with saving the day and getting us out of the store in under an hour. (I'm not a big shopping kinda gal, unless it's a bookstore.) The next hour was spent locating black flats, a cute (but cheap) purse and silvery nail polish. And although we didn’t find a little shrug to wear over her dress, I was pleasantly relieved that we were able to achieve any success at all.

But I’ll be holding my breath until she’s all dressed and at the party. As for The Spouse, he’ll be holding his breath until she arrives back home from the party.

Leaf Me Alone

The wretched Leaf Project has finally ended as my middle schoolers handed in their thick binders filled with leaves taped down and inserted into plastic sleeves next to neatly typed classifications and descriptions.

Though The Eldest Boy had been working on this thing for weeks, he only finished it up late last night, after getting home from his basketball tryouts. At around 9:30 p.m. he proudly presented it to The Spouse and I, as I crankily paused Grey’s Anatomy and looked it over. If we'd found big mistakes, the kid would've been up way too late to fix them. However there were none.

The Girl, who also finished up her project yesterday after we'd driven to a neighbor's house to pick one last leaf from a tree before going dress shopping, almost left the thing at home this morning, which would've resulted in a frantic call to yours truly begging me to bring the binder in to school. Luckily I asked her where her Leaf Project was before she got into the car – the kids all had to be driven to school every day this week (!). At least her binder wasn’t left on the ground behind the car. It wouldn’t have fared as well as the xylophone.

Image credits: Amazon.com, West Music and Norman Rockwell/Arcadia Youth Basketball.

Quick Hits from the Picket Fence Post Family

Mangling the Bike Tire

Scene: Backing out of garage to drive The Girl to soccer practice. A loud crunch followed.

Action: I got out to discover that I’d run over the front tire of a kid’s bike. A boy visiting the house had parked his bike behind my car. He said he’d leaned it up against the bush, next to the garage door. Whether he did or whether he didn't (or whether it fell over), is irrelevenat. The bike tire wound up being crunched nonetheless.

Conclusion: We’ve offered to pay for a replacement. No word from the kid’s parents on a pricetag though.

Fun with Tornado Warnings

The Picket Fence Post family spent some quality time in The Spouse’s basement home office last week after the weather forecasters were predicting – erroneously it turned out – that a powerful storm cell was headed in our direction, a cell that had already spawned deadly and destructive tornadic activity in western Massachusetts.

I set The Girl and The Youngest Boy up with snacks, a laptop computer, headphones and Malcolm in the Middle DVDs while I watched the TV news with The Eldest Boy and I Tweeted up a storm (no pun intended). I freaked out a bit when we received a warning call on our home phone from authorities suggesting that we “seek shelter” but tried (probably unsuccessfully) to keep it all cool on the outside as I kept in touch with my folks who live in the Springfield area which was hit with tornados. (They were fine).

The following day, The Eldest Boy came home from school and told me “no one” he knew had gone to the basement during the storm (a fact that other parents with whom I later spoke refuted). But then again, The Eldest Boy likes to paint me as an overcautious helicopter parent, and is fond of making sport of his old mom.

Permit Me This One Tangent . . .

When you’re a parent on the sidelines of a youth sporting event and you see that a kid on your kid’s team has been struggling, it’s not helpful to start smack-talking about how much he's stinking up the joint. Seriously. Plus, you never know if that kid’s parents are sitting nearby. Consider this a public service announcement.

Bruins Mania

I’m feeling a tad guilty at the moment. When the Boston Red Sox were in the World Series in 2004 and 2007, I, ever the enthusiastic fan, made signs which said, “Go Sox” and put them in our front windows.

However when the Celtics were in the NBA Finals, I didn’t put signs in the windows. It’s not that I didn’t care if they won or lost. We in the Picket Fence Post family watched the Finals and rooted for the C’s, but I wouldn’t say that any of us are totally nuts for the team like The Spouse and I are for the Sox.

But when the Bruins made it to the Stanley Cup finals, The Youngest Boy, our resident hockey player, was so jazzed about it that he asked me if we could put signs in the windows like we did in 2007. I said that we would because it’s only fair.

The sad part is, like the Bruins (last night’s game notwithstanding), we’ve kind of gotten off to a slow start what with youth soccer and baseball games, school projects and the like haven’t gotten around to making those signs yet. But now that the Bruins have kick-started their finals play with last night’s shellacking of Vancouver, I’m hoping that’ll kick-start our sign making.

Dealing with the Sports Dad/Coach: Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

The Spouse is a great youth sports coach. There have been families who've specifically requested that their kids be placed on his team. He’s calm, reasonable and doesn’t put his own ego out there on the court or ball field. It's all about the kids. The recreational teams he coaches are intended to teach children how to play a game and how to work together, and his efforts and attitudes reflect that. From time to time, I’ve joked with him that he’s like the Eric Taylor (Friday Night Lights) of the youth coaching set, particularly when he's making an end-of-the-game speech and awarding the game ball to a Little League player who stood out.

All three of the Picket Fence Post kids have greatly appreciated the fact that he’s coached them in one sport or another for years. (I put in two years as The Girl’s soccer coach when she was little, two seasons as a head coach, two as an assistant.)

Then came this Little League season. And I think the competitive pressure is getting to him. This year, more than any of the other years, I’ve watched him stress out over the batting order, over the pitching roster, over the fact that many of the practices were rained out and the team went on to lose tons of consecutive games. (They’ve won two to date.)

In the meantime, The Youngest Boy has lost some of his at-bat mojo because he was hit in the back by a hard pitch during a game. Now when he’s at the plate, he tends to back away and swing late. It’s messed him all up.

All of this has led to The Spouse wearing this pained look on his face during (and after) games when he’s frustrated because he feels pressure for his team to win, even though there’s been insufficient time for the team to practice and address their weaknesses. No matter how many times I tell him that it’s “just Little League,” they’re “just little kids,” I’m not really helping to improve his mood . . . though an after-game cocktail has seemed to loosen him up.

I so much want him to be able to take a few steps back and enjoy the silly insanity of it all, to see that he's coaching a group of kids who still find it amusing to make fart noises with their arm pits, climb the chain link fence around the dugout, giggle when someone says "balls" and who don't understand why it's necessary to shower after a game. When The Spouse is inspired and amused, it can be contagious, and that's a good thing.

As for The Youngest Boy feeling timid about stepping into the batter’s box, I hope that more, low-pressure visits to the batting cage will help improve matters. If not, then a nice ice cream cone or a slushy after the game seems to lift everyone's spirits.

Adventures in Youth Sports: Spring Edition (Includes a Pig on a Leash)

It's been a weird week in youth sports for the Picket Fence Post family. We're talkin' a tiny pig on a leash, a whistle, heated arguments, bone-chilling dampness and bodies flying.

On the Little League front, The Youngest Boy's team, coached by The Spouse, finally won their first game. In fact, they won two in a row and actually turned some smart plays that led to runners being tagged out.

The Youngest Boy pitched during one of those games and I watched him through my fingers as I, from time to time, had my hands over my eyes. It's really nerve-wracking to watch him gun in some decent pitches, strike a kid or two out, then walk half of the other team. The hurt look on the little pitchers' faces when they're pulled . . . just breaks your heart.

One of those two games was played on a damp, cold day. (I literally turned on the fireplace and curled up in front of it with a book after I got home trying to regain feeling back in my fingertips.) The game went on for well over two hours. The league rules say you're not supposed to start a new inning more than 1 hour 50 minutes from the game start unless there's a tie. However there wasn't a tie. The Youngest Boy's team was up by a decent amount of runs. But when The Spouse wanted to end the game, the coach of the other team wanted his kiddos to keep playing. (My guess is that he thought his team could catch up.) When The Spouse returned to the bench, another mother and I started bitterly complaining to no avail that the game had gone on too long and should've ended. At least The Youngest Boy's team prevailed.

On a different playing field later in the week, The Girl's soccer team was quite well matched as they took on another area team in a tough contest. But they weren't well matched if you consider that the ref was a hometown ref, and the game wasn't in our hometown. Normally, when the officiating is somewhat imbalanced, we tell the Picket Fence Post kids afterwards that oftentimes things aren't fair and you just have to roll with it 'cause there's nothing you can do about it. But in this particular case, the guy reffing the game was so blatantly unfair, that the parents on the sidelines, including yours truly, started griping. Loudly. (I hardly ever yell to a ref, except at a Red Sox or UMass basketball game.)

Bodies were flying. Girls were falling. And penalty shots were taken . . . at our goal, repeatedly. At one point, the normally even-keeled Spouse, who never gets into beefs with others at youth sporting events (see above how he let the other Little League coach drag the game out), yelled directly at the ref after one particularly egregious missed call. The guy turned to The Spouse, held out his whistle and asked him if he wanted to take over.

After the game -- where we noticed that a spectator watching another game on an adjacent field had brought along a tiny pink pig on a red leash -- that ref was waiting near the exit for "the guy who had a question" about his officiating. Cue the loud, impassioned argument between the ref and The Spouse while The Girl rolled her eyes and urged me to keep walking to the car.

Just your average week in youth sports.

Huzzah! My Rain Dance Worked! Practices & Games Canceled!

When I saw that weather forecasters were predicting several consecutive days of rain this week in the Boston area, I was secretly thrilled. No, not because I have a twisted desire to live in dreary, Seattle-like weather where I actually want to sit in front of the fireplace (in May!) in order to warm myself up or feel the need to wrap myself in a blanket while working at my desk.

Why have I been so chipper about all this lousy, unspringlike, inclement weather (in the 40s-50s)? Because I’m a desperate soccer/baseball mom who is delighted to enjoy a break from racing the three Picket Fence Post kids around to soccer practices, soccer evaluations (for placement on next year's teams), baseball practices and baseball games. (It’s supposed to be nice over the weekend – when The Spouse is around to help pitch in on the schlepping all over town – so the weekend games should go on as planned. And I’m okay with that.)

What a relief it has been to “only” have to hound the kids about doing their homework assignments and about helping out with chores like emptying the dishwasher and feeding Max while I have the opportunity to finish my work AND make a decent meal that wasn’t whipped together on the fly (cereal, soup, PB&J) in between drop offs and pick ups.

Sometimes it’s nice to have the weather force you to take a step back from the madness of the spring youth sports season -- and from being the children's indentured servant chauffeur -- and take a breather.

Image credit: Planet Mom T-shirts.

Breaking News from the Picket Fence Post Family . . .

. . . The 2010-2011 youth hockey season, which began in August 2010, is now, officially, over. (This makes me wonder if that nagging cough and runny nose that I've had for what seems like months on end will finally end now that I'm no longer sitting in ice cold arenas.)

Now we'll have oodles and oodles of extra time given that we now just have one kid playing Little League -- The Spouse is coaching the team -- and two kids playing travel soccer. With all this free time, maybe I'll take up a new hobby, like catching up on sleep.

Three for Thursday: Restaurant Tells Screaming Kids to Get Out, Showtime's Dysfunctional Moms & Sports Parents Crying Uncle

Item #1: Restaurant Tells Screaming Kids to Get Out



A North Carolina restaurant owner has sparked a hearty dialog online by posting this simple sign in its front window, “Screaming children will not be tolerated.”

A Babble blogger called the "no screaming kids" policy a “total joke,” writing: “I don’t condone bad behavior in public, but we all know even the most well-behaved children are sometimes more boisterous than we’d like them to be. That doesn’t mean families should be forced to stay home.”

A writer on Slate said while she doesn’t tolerate “screaming by my children at home, let alone in public,” she thinks the sign is overly hostile: “It’s an admonishment, an advance assumption that those children will scream. It creates an immediate atmosphere of hostility toward families, and it is, in itself, rude.”

In her defense, restaurant owner Brenda Armes told her local TV station that she wants to give her customers a pleasant dining experience saying, “We want to attract the type of people that come in knowing they aren’t going to have to sit behind a table with a bunch of screaming children.”

In the TV interview, Armes added that she just wants parents to take their children outside if the kids start to scream. The sign notwithstanding, that’s not an unreasonable policy . . . speaking as someone who has, in the past, hastily asked the waiter to pack up my food in a To Go bag while I hustled my screaming toddlers out to the car and The Spouse paid the bill.

Do you think the restaurant owner went overboard or is sending a negative message to parents?

Item #2: Showtime's Dysfunctional Moms

Back in March, The Wall Street Journal ran a feature story saying that Showtime was planning to build on the success of their pot-dealing suburban mom show Weeds and was promoting more shows featuring strong, dysfunctional female characters.

From Weeds’ Nancy Botwin, who has taken her children on the run along with her former brother-in-law, and Nurse Jackie’s unfaithful, drug-addicted nurse married mom of two, to The Big C’s married high school teacher mom whose cancer diagnosis (which she’s kept secret from her family) has caused her to upend her life, Showtime is really delivering on the dysfunctional mom front, a subject to which I dedicated my recent pop culture column.

Item #3: Sports Parents Crying Uncle

And I thought I was the only one who feels overwhelmed by the intensity and time suck that has become youth sports. Just this Saturday, my three kids have four games in four different towns, starting at a pre-dawn hour, with the last one occurring smack dab in the middle of dinner hour. The whole day will feature The Spouse and I racing around to four different places for soccer and hockey games. (My 9-year-old son has TWO games on Saturday in different locations.) I've already informed my daughter's coach that The Girl will miss her Sunday afternoon soccer practice because we’re going to be belatedly celebrating Rosh Hashanah with family -- heresy, I know -- however we have arranged for The Youngest Boy to get transportation to and from his soccer practice Sunday morning while The Spouse and I are preparing for our big family celebration (for which we're missing church, FYI, because Saturday was so packed).

This schedule makes me crazy because I oftentimes feel like sports can take over family life, even when I limit each child to one sport per season and don't go to "extra" tournaments and competitions. Well the local CBS station here in Boston just featured a mom of three who decided she’d had enough of her sons’ insane sports schedules and is taking their participation down a notch.

In the segment – link here – the mom talked about the scheduling nightmare that is having three children play sports at far-flung locations and the negative fallout she has received from her parenting peers when they learned that she pulled her kids off of travel teams and stopped making a year-long commitment to specific sports. She just reduced their involvement, not eliminating it altogether, mind you.

“Experts in youth sports have found a lot of youth burnout among over-scheduled child-athletes, and now there is burnout among parents as well,” WBZ reporter Paula Ebben wrote on her blog.

As the new fall sports seasons commence, what do you think about this issue? Can sports – particularly when it comes to travel teams – spiral out of control? How do you handle it?