We are having a bad day. The first rule of having a bad day is to admit that you are having a bad day and hope that the God of Toilets will let you out of his swirling bowl of shit. However, as often happens when you know you are having a bad day, it just doesn't get better, it gets worse. This is the one and only day that you discover that you win the lottery but have lost the ticket and that the girl you knew in high school actually had your love child and wants 18 years of back child support. And it all started with you dropping a bowl of cereal on the floor first thing in the morning and saying to yourself, Man, I'm already having a bad day.
Our bad day started with me getting some sort of weird sickness. Of course this happens because one of the minions picked up something from the alley ways that I let them play in and have brought it home to me. While it is only the slight sniffles to one of them, it's the plague to me and I have to call a snake healer to come with some venom to do some voodoo on me. It never works but I like the chanting.
And of course there are no days off when you are the primary caregiver. There are no PTO days or earned time off days. You're sick, now take care of your children. Parenting, you never get a break but you get plenty of germs and if you are lucky, constantly hit in the ball sack.
You do what you have to do, you take out a box of Pop Tarts and throw them at the wolves hoping that the scrum you have created will last long enough to give you 25 minutes of interrupted time with your snake healer so you can get back to parenting. You put on some cartoons, not even caring which one comes on. Deep Throat could be remade into a children's classic for all you care at this moment, all you want is to lay down and blow the massive amounts of snot out of system. Maybe you can sell this stuff as lubricant.
I'm getting quite good at this, both having a sickness while parenting and managing bad days. I stay on the couch waiting for the next disaster to strike, ready to throw a box of tissues at anything that launches itself at me and my unprotected crotch. So for most of the day, I was able to contain it. I was feeling good about it, like maybe I turned this thing around, which is of course when things get worse.
I have turned into a full fledged soccer mom. Both kids are in soccer both have practices before Hossmom gets home from work. Tonight is my son's first practice and he's been looking forward to it. There is no doubt that we are going. An hour before practice time I finally put on some pants and start getting ready. It's at this moment that I realize what a bitch a bad day can be. All the soccer gear is in Hossmom's car which is currently 45 minutes in the wrong direction. Cleats, shorts, soccer ball, none of it is here.
It is easy to blame Hossmom for this although I have no idea why other than it makes me feel better. It was my fault I didn't bring it inside after my daughter's last practice. It's my fault that I didn't get ready the night before. I'm pumped about my kids getting into sports, I'm looking forward to it. So I got everything you are supposed to have and made a big deal of telling everyone that all equipment MUST GO IN THE BAG! They actually listened to me and now I am screwed because of it.
But I am adaptable. We currently have no shorts that would fit my son, it's winter. But I do have a pair of PJ pants that kind of look like sweats. That will work. The practice is indoors so he'll sweat a little bit and look like shit but so be it. We don't have our soccer ball and this is going to suck because he can't practice without a ball. So I nut up, load everyone into the car and go spend the 15 bucks to get a new one. My plan is to make Hossmom return it the next day as penance for letting me mess up.
45 minutes and 10 box of tissues later, we are at my son's first soccer practice. And then I meet the real soccer moms. They all seem to know each other and they all seem to congregate together in the sign-in line, ignoring all the line cutting rules that society usually adheres to. I let it go, it's fun time for my son.
I quickly get the up and down stare from one mom in front of me and am judged accordingly for my son's PJ pants. I look down at my son bringing him in close to me when I also realize that I have put his shoes on the wrong feet so that he looks somewhat even more ridiculous. I know what they are thinking. They are thinking "I guess mom wasn't home to........" I hate this. I hate it being assumed I don't know what I'm doing just because I'm dad. But with my son's PJs and wrong footed shoes, I can't really blame them. It still bugs me because I look at their kids.
It looks like and Adidas salesman vomited on each of them. New Adidas cleats, Adidas shorts, Adidas shirts covered nicely by new Adidas pullovers. And of course Adidas soccer balls, brand new. I say hi and am quickly shunned. I am not Adidas material apparently.
But I begin to feel better shortly there after when practice starts. It turns out that my son has a decent talent for soccer and is much better than the triple Adidas bombs. And not only that, my son is remarkably well behaved, he listens and does what he is supposed to do. He traps the ball with his feet, he kicks it into the goal, he gets his ball and goes back to talk to the coach. I am feeling quite proud while the Adidas triplets run wild, decide that they would rather play basketball, pick up their balls and throw it over the net and then take off.
It's the simple things in life that matters and I almost smirk with my more advanced parenting techniques. My son will grow up to run companies and change lives, the Adidas triplets will grow up and go by nicknames such as "The Situation." My bad day is getting better.
At home I'm telling Hossmom about our first practice and how we really didn't fit in with the moms. This is when she stops me and asks if my shirt has been inside out all day. Bad day. Should have realized it's just a bad day. Moms weren't judging me, I just looked like I had stolen someone else's kids and went to soccer practice to watch little boys run.
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