It's Good to Be FIVE

My littlest baby is five years old- it's not his birthday or anything, he's been five for a while now, but it's on my mind today. When I think of 5 , a few things always play in my head. One is Little Bill...is that show even on anymore? Little Bill was five, and I always remember his dad teaching him, and him repeating "it's good to be five" in that smooth Bill Cosby rhthym.

The other line is from a poem that the kindergarten teacher sends home every year on the first day of school. This lady is forever on a diabolical mission to make moms cry...so she likes to find poems to screw with us. I don't remember the rest of the poem, but there's a line that says "when you're five and your heart has wings, nothing can mean so many things". What does that mean? Who knows. But it made you choke up a bit, right?

The third great "five" line that sticks with me is the morning my oldest turned five. My husband and I were lying in bed and we heard him get up and repeat to himself "I'm five, I'm five, I'm five" and we heard his little feet running to the bathroom, see himself in the mirror and say "I still look four". It was one of those great days that started out with a hysterical belly laugh before my head lifted off the pillow.

So in my decade of accrued mommy wisdom, I've determined that five is a year to savor. I know certain things are important in the world that is kindergarten and birthdays parties are pretty much top on the list. I remember when birthday parties were much of my social life, I'd hop from party to party and chat it up with all the moms. Probably carrying Luke in one of my million slings, Lexi decked out in an $80 boutique outfit...oh how times have changed.

This past weekend was crazy around here, we had hockey out the wazoo topped with a big fat hockey party at my house on Saturday night. I was busy with all the big kid stuff. One of Luke's closest friends' birthday party was Saturday morning at the same time as Luke's instructional hockey. I had determined that we'd be skipping hockey to go to the party. He'd already missed a party because we were at his brother's tournament and I know this birthday party age only lasts a few years. There will be plenty more ice time in my little boy's future.

Imagine my surprise when my five year old contemplated going to hockey instead of the party... I saw that little look in his eye, and thought- NO! is the moment my baby becomes one of them- a hockey player?? Because I know so well that the sport has an addictive quality I will never understand. The complulsion to skate is bigger than fevers, tummyaches and broken bones, please don't let it be bigger than a kindergarten birthday party. Thankfully, his little five year old mind can still be manipulated and off to the party we went.

And then I did the craziest thing of all- I STAYED at the party! I didn't take off to run errands, get ready for the evening's bash, drive my other kids places...I stayed and took it all in. They played, they bounced, they sang they caked- my friend's youngest lost a tooth in the middle of it all. I enjoyed every minute of it, because you know what happens at every single kindergarten birthday party? Someone turns SIX.

Why Hockey Moms are the Hottest

Check out the custom Hockey Moms are the Hottest travel mug I ordered for my super hot hockey mom friend. Stay tuned for my fashion line "Cowbells and Dreams"...hats, gloves, blankets and of course sweatpants with COWBELL across the ass. It's all happening! (just kidding, nothing is happening and grown women shouldn't wear sweatpants in public)

I know what you are thinking- just WHY are hockey moms are the hottest? I'm pretty sure it's all about the attitude...

1. if you let your kids play hockey, you can't be an uptight, paranoid mom that hovers over her kid, even if they get hurt. there is plexiglass between mama and her cub, and we are ok with that.

2. flexibility- hockey families don't sit down to a lot of weeknight dinners, or always always go to bed on time. the only routine is going to hockey, it's just a matter of what time we need to be there.

3. one word- SCREAM- that's hot

4. we throw the best parties

5. be aggressive, B-E AGGRESSIVE...no one pushes around a hockey mom. I don't know any other civilized women outside of reality tv who will get into it with refs, coaches, total strangers.

6. we move fast. ice time is precious and work, dinner, traffic and homework can sometimes delay our best efforts. no time to daudle. last week I dropped one child off to sharpen all the skates, two more at the door while I parked the car and still had my friend's (not even my own) six year old completely suited up and on the ice in five minutes.

7. naturally, my new Cowbells and Dreams fashion line makes anyone look HOT!

Seeing your Shadow

Today my friend posted a photo on facebook of her boy in tears at the end of his last hockey game of the season. The groundhog didn't see his shadow, I like to say, and it's an early spring for his Squirt team. I say this tongue in cheek, not only because we live in New England and can get snow in June, but also because he still has weeks left of House League playoffs followed by spring clinics, summer camps, etc...hockey truly never ends.


Someone commented under the photo that they had "learned more from their defeats than from their victories", which I think is quite true. And this is one of the reasons I'm glad my children play hockey. It seems that fewer and fewer youth sports keep score these days, and most give a participation trophy to everyone who shows up. I'm not sure what this teaches kids about life, but it certainly doesn't prepare them for disapointment. Youth hockey is one of the few places you will find competitive tryouts for kids as young as seven, for better or worse. It's not easy to deal with loss and rejection at a young age, but it doesn't get any easier as you get older, so you may as well give it a try early on. Once you lose a playoff game, or get cut from a team, and then you wake up the next morning and go about your day, you realize you don't need to be afraid of failure. Kids learn to take chances, shoot the puck, tryout for the team- what's the worse that can happen? My dad always taught me that adversity builds character. I hope hockey is helping to build my kids' character. Or at least to counter-effect the X Box games that are rotting at their souls.

My daughter's team will likely see an early spring...their season has been a lot more like the movie Groundhog Day. We wake up, drive thru the snow, get to the rink, and they lose, same routine every time. Sometimes, like today, they only lose by a couple of goals, sometimes we're just praying for a groundhog to pop out of the ice and put us all out of our misery. Learning to lose with grace is part of life, and it's hard. Winning is much easier. So when the buzzer rings and her team has lost, again, it's ok for my daughter to be disapointed, to give the ice a little bang with her stick and then brush it off and shake hands.

I just hope she knows God made her perfectly; that her Dad and I love her to the moon and back; and that life is short but the hockey season is loooong- there will be another game next week. And I hope she takes a lesson from her brother (below), everyone hugs the goalie when they win- go get your goalie after a tough loss.

The Hardest to Learn

I named my blog after the song by the Indigo Girls, which was a favorite in my college dorms. I've known the words to the song by heart for years http://www.metrolyrics.com/least-complicated-lyrics-indigo-girls.html and "the hardest to learn was the least complicated" truly speaks to my experience with motherhood. And the line "the kids are walkin home from school" reminds me of how much I wish my neighborhood was full of kids walking home in lieu of the SUV traffic that rivals Los Angeles at rush hour.

I've always been a pretty laid back mom, but it took me until my third baby before I gave up feeling guilty about it. I stopped stressing over all the scheduled nursing, waking and sleep training nonsense. I was all about keeping simple. I used to wear Luke in a sling everywhere, not because I'm a hippy but because I had two preschoolers to chase around. I breastfed because it was easy, but when I had to give a bottle it was formula, pumping was too....say it with me...complicated!

Now that my babies are not so much babies, but kids ages 10, 8 and 5...I try my best not to complicate things. When I thought about this blog last year I was still a stay at home mom. I was itching to cut out all the crazy from motherhood; from the baby music classes to driving kids to school early so that they can join the walking club- hello anyone else see the irony? I felt like it was more complicated than ever to raise kids, and I felt like we moms were making it that way. I was longing to be more of an old fashioned 50's style mom, who didn't have a car or cable or a gym membership and who's kids did chores and entertained themselves around the neighborhood.

Circumstances have changed and I now work outside the home. I've gotten a chance to make friends with a couple of moms outside of my usual circles. They don't have time to drive their kids to school, so their kids take the bus. If the kid forgets something at home, that sucks for them. If my kids forgets something at school and I am stuck at the office, I usually cry because I feel so guilty. The girls at the office don't fret about gifts for teachers or school events, in fact when I try to discuss such topics at work I have often gotten the reply "who do you hang out with?" and I just laugh...I hang out with people exactly like me!

I never guessed I could learn so much about motherhood from younger, working, single moms who've never even been to a PTA meeting. But I have...by just listening to my friend Amanda on the phone with her sons everyday after they get themselves home from school...I've learned about discipline, chores, independence and fierce mama bear love. I still don't know where my ideal throw back mom is hiding in 2011 but I know her kids are walkin home from school, or at least taking the bus.

No Pleasure Cruise...

I've had the song "We Are The Champions" stuck in my head all weekend, and it has nothing to do with the Super Bowl. It's because I heard the movie The Mighty Ducks playing on repeat in my van all weekend while driving to a hockey tournament in Saratoga, NY.

And it's probably no coincidence that the particular line "its been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise..." has stuck with me. The trip featured my hubby with a fever, chills and the stomach flu, weather that could only be described as a "wintry mix", opposing parents who were CBWI (cowbelling while intoxicated), and a swinger party sharing the hotel with us. Kind of like a Carnival Cruise with the Noro virus.

Unfortunately, it was no bed of roses for my daughter's Mite A team. It was no pleasure cruise straight into the boards for the kid my little girl jacked up for her "roughing" penalty, either... but unfortunately that was the most interesting part of their tourney. They got beat, and they got beat bad- four games in a row. Oh well. It happens. You lose some, you lose some, you swim in the pool some, (get a wierd skin rash) and torment the hotel staff some. It's all good.

Lucky for me I got to see our B team show up and quack all over those Upstate New York teams, Mighty Ducks style. Those little buggers skated their hearts out and won all of their games- the championship in a quardruple overtime! A Mite B game can be more exciting than the NHL, because absolutely ANYTHING can happen, and the slow pace just adds to the anticipation. I laughed, screamed and had tears in my eyes, remembering my son's State Championship Mite B game. When they won that game, we moms screamed, cheered, cried and some of us peed a little. Now that the kids have gotten bigger and skate faster, we all still miss the magic of that season, when they were small and clueless and mostly off sides.

Today when I heard a hockey mom scream to her youngest child, as he took the faceoff in overtime "You got this baby!", I realized my baby- my 5 year old- could still be a Mite B someday and I'm already looking forward to it. But if they ever play "We Are the Champions", be prepared for me to bawl my eyes out.