Eating Two Large Sub Sandwiches in a Four Hour Time Frame

Always a contradiction in terms, a tree-hugging conservative, the only vegetarian in my Sunday School Class, besides Sarah, a Bible-reading environmentalist, a not very well-dressed soccer mom who, last night, facing three games in windy, dropping temperatures, wore her long underwear under her jeans, who hung tight to what Daniel and Big Joe taught her long ago about not running on the field to check on an injured player. Repress the mama urge to help. They're big boys now.

However when blood is involved, the coaches look for me, not comprehending my intense nausea at the sight of blood, guts and mayhem, and last night somehow Nando managed to catch his tooth mid-air before he fell, busting open his lip, creating more blood flow than might have initially been warranted by a baby tooth mishap as a result of a head-on, full running gait collision between two seven year old boys in cleats.

I gagged.

Running to me with his prize catch, I immediately wondered if my previously eaten foot long veggie sub would spring forth, in alarm I remembered Emily bringing me a second sub that afternoon, as I've been chowing down tons of food in retaliation for my stress lead.

Fortunately both subs sunk, I ran Nando to the bathroom to clean out his mouth, and he returned to his game.

Emily'd met me over at Yolie's and listened to me vent, offering up her usual dead-on suggestions based on her decades long career in adoption, but more importantly, her baptisms-by-fire experiences of raising a large adoptive family as a single mom. She has six kids, five of which would challenge Pat Boone to cuss.

I'd been to town, drug home tons of Starbucks coffee grounds for my gardens before Meg's rain from Texas arrived here late last night, putting a goofy grin on my face, but the icing on the cake arrived when Jonathan got off his crazy bird perch and flew to school this morning.

I'll spend this morning with Ray and Hazel while Sarah has an appointment, we'll hopefully move Yolie's family into her new gorgeous house this weekend, and soccer tournaments start. For my U12 and, especially U14 teams, I do not sit down, but pace the sidelines yelling encouragement. A good thing too as the team last night resorted to bullying against my kids, knowing that was the only way to unnerve their very focused soccer efforts. I stood shocked when my very even-tempered CW banged into someone obviously on a retaliatory mission. "Cool off Dubs," I'd warned with an unmistakable tone in my voice.

He'd been slammed and tripped hard, intentionally into the ground twice already, and the entire van ride home was devoted to good sportmanship conversations that my hero, Bobby Cox, rarely demonstrated, now becoming close to the coach most often kicked out of a game for arguing, not necessarily a role model.

Wrong sport Dubs, listen to what I'm saying.

Their particular hero, Daniel, then called me about a financial decision, just wanting another opinion, telling me he was also gonna check with Yolie, but allowing me a good example yet again to teach the Bubbas. In wisdom there is counsel...something I've always depended on Emily (or my pastors or Yolie and Sarah) to help me with in this astonishingly blind and treacherous route of adoption.

I have so much in my head to blog and so little time, I'm hoping to get more written during our only off season (Nov-Jan) of no soccer, swimming or gardening. Well I still garden, but only at about 10%.

I don't think I even wrote about my hissy fit at the Mexican trailer park last week when I carried on to Vanessa and Fabian about their slugishness, yelling outside, aggravated at their inability to get it together. "Y'all wanna be grown-ups. Get a dern job," I yammered on and on, looking over my shoulder, wondering why we couldn't have picked a safer meeting spot, but hey this is the name of our game apparently.

Asked in a comment, do I regret my adoptions? No. I regret the evidence, appearance or the mere existence of mental illnesses, and I shudder to think of their futures if they can't be reached at some point.

Paloma had a runaway meltdown fit at the soccer park last night. I stood at the last game of the night, wondering if I'd need a deputy, later snarling at my friend Robin in exasperation over Paloma's stark inability to function at all. Surprisingly Paloma did an about face and wanted to snuggle, to cling to me at the game, and being the forgiving sort, I did so. Of course, Jonathan - Mr. Won't Go to School - wanted to cling also and I was a bit less forgiving, "Boy, I didn't miss you, you've been in my armpit for days."

He went to school today.

I'm re-venting the dryer to have less of a fire hazard, cleaning up all I didn't get done yesterday due to errands, guzzling my turbo coffee, and thanking God for my energy. My mother once bragged that in her 60s, she worked circles around women in their 20s. I'm not a fast runner, nor have I ever demonstrated any ability to play a sport decently, yet I can bust my butt from sunup to sundown and still feel too energized to calm down and sleep at night - a Gift from God that I deeply appreciate.

My mom, now 78, still super active, is an inspiration to me.