The nights are chilly, the leaves are dropping, and we can no longer take an apres-diner romp on the funground. Hells yeah, it’s October!
We’ve been busy. Little Boy is a full-fledged youth soccer player, which requires commitment beyond my wildest expectations. Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings — gone, poof, to soccer. Which is fine, because he’s getting markedly better and enjoying it. At the beginning, he was wasting that precious lightening left-foot kick by anointing himself as the sole defensive player on his team. Apparently young children don’t play positions in soccer — they are all supposed to chase the ball en masse, all 10 of them attacking the ball at once, a throng of kicky little legs. It’s encouraged to develop their dribbling skills but it makes for a chaotic (not to mention exhausting) soccer experience for the kids.
Which is why, when Little Boy realized how nonsensical it was for everyone on the team to chase after the ball and he decided to buck against the norm by playing defense, I was a little proud of him. Of course logically, strategically — they shouldn’t all run after the ball. But if Little Boy stood on the other side of the field, guarding his team’s goal, not only did the other parents look at me with pity (that my son’s not a joiner), he was losing valuable soccer skills — not to mention he’d never score a goal! We had to force him to defy the logic and join the herd.
And last week, he scored his first in-game goal!
Half-time Snack
Both Little Boy and Primus the kitten have been growing exponentially. They have a hate-love-hate relationship. Now that we aren’t always rushing off to the funground in the evening, they’ve made a brotherly peace.
We went to Gillette Stadium to take in a football game. I’d love to say we saw the Patriots, but we aren’t committed to taking Little Boy to an NFL football game before he understands really basic fundamentals of the game. So we paid $10 each to see my Alma Mater UMass take on Miami… Miami, Ohio, that is.
Are you ready for some football?
UMass won, apparently (we left after the stellar half-time show! The bandies will inherit the earth!)
Grandpa and Grandma came to visit a few weekends ago, which mean that Mr. P and I could go on a date — and when I saw “date,” I mean “arriving and departing an early Sunday morning running race together.” Oh, but we enjoy it! I gave Mr. P a carte blanche on the event and he choose the Nahant 30K, a road race. “Sure, fine,” I said. It turned out this is a key event in the USA Track and Field Grand Prix, meaning that amateur runners across Massachusetts flock to the Nahant 30K, and everyone was in a running club, and despite the fact that I ran 8:30 min/mile for 18.6 miles, I still finished in the bottom half of the girls. Super competitive. The pre-race ladies’ room line reminded me why I prefer the camaraderie of trail races. Trail runners would be avidly discussing hydration gear, watches, and sports bras while debating whether to just go in the woods; road runners examine their competition’s shoes, legs, and waists with steely glares. Nahant was a tough race, for sure.
Mr. P finishing Nahant 30K
Me finishing Nahant 30K (18.6 hilly miles)
