Saturday, March 28, 2015

Teen Boys

They say teen girls are worse than teen boys. Girls are moody, tempermental, they get their periods, they can get pregnant, they like boys, they are just weird. Well, let me tell you, I would raise a thousand girls if I didn't have to raise any teen boys. 

I can handle the periods, and the mood swings, and the attitude, and the hormones, and the liking boys. But boys, boys are disgusting! There are layers upon layers of disgusting that comes with teen boys. 

I'm not talking the pick your nose and eat your boogers kind of disgusting. I'm not talking about the gunk between their toes grossness. I'm not talking about the belching and the farting, either... believe me, my boys don't hold a candle to my girls when it comes to those bodily functions. 

I am talking about the lack of showering. They promise to shower in the morning but they don't get up on time and end up running out the door in the clothes they slept in. They forget to brush their teeth. They forget to put on deodorant. They forget to put socks on. They come home and they just stink to high heavens. No amount of body spray will even cover it up. Then they still have to practically be forced to get in the shower. The next step would be hosing them down in the backyard because every inch of their body is growing something nasty and it's going straight to my nose. 

I am talking about the food they stuff in their faces. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter how old it is. It can be slathered in 12 different condiments, have bee dropped on the floor, and left out all night and they would still eat it. No concoction is off limits. If it's food, it's edible. And then they shovel it in their mouths like they haven't eaten in months. They are worse than toddlers at lunch time. 

Then there is the most disgusting thing of all. I am talking about the changes. The puberty changes. The hormones. The obsession with sex. They figure out what happens when Willy gets hard. They figure out what to do about it. They want to know how to do other things and it's disgusting. As adults, we just see it as normal, every day kind of stuff. And when we were younger sex wasn't as easy to come by. If we wanted to be naughty we had to find our parent's porn magazine stash under their beds or their dirty dice in their closets. Now, all teens have to do is turn on the computer and search for nude pictures and sex videos. We can even turn on all the parental settings but these disgusting, albeit smart, boys will find a way around that. Did you know you can still find bikini and underwear models via Google with all the parental settings turned on? Yeah, I found that out the hard way. 

So yeah, boys are gross. Girls might be moody and like these disgusting boys but give me a teen girl over a teen boy any day. I can handle that. I can even handle little boys that like to dig for worms and shove beads up their noses. I cannot handle my precious baby boy going through those hormonal changes, though. Give me the dirty little boy back, not the dirty teen that lives under my roof now. 

Friday, March 27, 2015

Teach, Learn, Reteach, Relearn

Homeschooling can be fun. It can also be tedious and stressful. Most of our days are the latter.

I would really like to be that well put together homeschool mom that can teach 12 subjects involving art and cooking and visits to the museum to six kids and enjoy every minute of it. Unfortunately, that just isn't me.

I homeschool one third grade boy and he drives me absolutely batty. Every day we have to do work he whines about it. He hates writing. He hates reading. He hates math. It's a battle to get him to just sit still and do his work so I can be sure he is learning the things he needs to in order to take a state assessment that is coming up soon. The assessment that will determine whether he is learning enough at home to keep me out of trouble.

It seems that every other day I have to reteach him skills he has already known for months. I have to constantly direct, and redirect, him on the process to take when trying to find an answer. This is especially true for math.

He flew through the numbers and numeration portion of his math workbook. He aced the test for that, too. Then we moved into operations. He flew through the workbook and when we took the test on it, he failed miserably. Even though he knew how to do the work when it came to doing it in the workbook, he couldn't seem to remember any of it for the test. Or he just wasn't thinking it through and reading the directions properly. Questions like, "Joe had a photo album with 4 pages. Each page holds 3 pictures. How many pictures does the photo album hold?" and he knows how to do those kinds of problems, yet he would answer 7. He saw the 4 and the 3 and immediately went to addition for the answer. I made him retake the test, twice! He finally did well enough that I felt we could move on.

We stuck with fast math for awhile. Working on playing card addition, subtraction, and multiplication. We did a lot of fast math online on xtramath, and we did a variety of lessons on Khan Academy. He was doing very well with all of it, so we moved onto the geometry section of his math workbook.

He is flying through that, just like the other sections but now the simplest of tasks he cannot remember. Working on Khan Academy today he read the question is 497+58= but then kept telling me he had to take away numbers because you can't do 7 and 8. Even though he read the question, he was thinking he needed to do subtraction. Then when he was doing a perimeter question, something we have gone over quite often with me telling him "you walk around the outside" in order to find the perimeter of an object but he "didn't remember."

The whole reason I pulled him out of school in the first place was because he was coming home from school "forgetting" everything his teacher taught him so I was having to reteach him in my own way. That seemed to frustrate him more. We would spend hours in the evening stressing each other out because I did not have time to teach him things he should already know.

You all know I am a busy mom. I have 5 kids to take care of, a household to run, soccer practices, soccer games, etc etc etc. It didn't make sense to send him to school just to come home and not know anything. I figured the best option was just teaching him myself. Which I feel like I am doing a good job... about 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time is spent wondering who can teach him better. Does he need to go back to school? Am I doing him any kind of service by keeping him home? Is the stress worth it? Will he eventually catch on? Am I enabling him to not have to remember because I sit and help him each day?

He has to take this state assessment coming up and I am worried that he won't know what to do. We took some practice tests the other day and I have got to say, I hated them. The questions seemed too abstract for third graders. Math shouldn't be that difficult. The reading portion seemed too indepth. The questions used wording that made it confusing to use the text to find the answer. I worry about what the results of the test will say about me as the sole provider of information for him.

Then again, what is the worst that can happen? They tell me he has to go back to school? I hope to send him back next year anyway. But for now, I will teach and reteach and hope that one day he just learns and doesn't have to relearn every couple of days.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Get It Done

I recently signed up for my first 10K! The most I have ran at all is under 5 miles so I am not sure how I will do but I am hoping to run the entire race.

The race is a week from Saturday and I haven't been doing enough running. Most days I get in about 3 miles, if I am feeling up to getting out and hitting the pavement. I did do 4 straight miles last week though and felt pretty good about it.

I ran 3 on Monday... or maybe it was only two... I don't remember and don't feel like checking at the moment since my phone (where my app is) is on the charger. Oh wait, I can check Facebook, since I posted it there. Yep! 3.05 miles! It was a good run, and I even posted a "poem" while I was running... cause I am silly like that. You can check that out on my other blog, http://youre-a-poet.blogspot.com/ if you are so inclined.

Anyway, my legs have been really sore since then. I'm not quite sure why, though. I stretched plenty so maybe I haven't been drinking enough water. The weird part was that it was my inner thighs that were sore. That part of my legs has never gotten sore from running before and my thighs are my most disliked feature... so it was a good thing and a bad thing that they were sore.

It was bad because I did not feel like running yesterday, so instead I did 50 squats, 50 crunches, and 2 twenty second elbow planks. My hubby was a sweetheart and rubbed my thighs before we went to bed... no strings attached. He actually said he thought I might have been "lying" about where my legs were sore because I wanted to get lucky but he was too tired. I laughed because I thought he offered to rub my legs because he wanted to get lucky but I was too tired LOL Needless to say, no one got lucky last night.

On the upside, my legs were feeling better this morning. My son, that I homeschool, had a question in regards to how fast someone would run a mile in his math workbook and while the answer is dependent on the person, the correct answer was 15 minutes. He didn't believe me that 15 minutes for a mile was even an option because a mile seems so long to him. So after he finished his work I decided we would go out and see how fast he could run one mile. We left the house, ran for quarter of a mile, came back, and then did it again so we could hit 1 mile. He was shocked to see his time was 10 minutes and 34 seconds. He was pretty tired, even though he runs faster and harder than that on the soccer field, but I was proud that he didn't give up on the run. I then went back out and did another 1.2 miles after we got back home and while I would have liked to have made it a longer run, it was really hot this morning. I do much better with my pace and distance if I can start right after the sun comes up or as the sun is going down. Running any other time here in Hawaii is just a killer, especially for someone that doesn't like the heat. The other upside to my legs hurting is that it means my thighs are getting a much needed workout. Maybe I can eventually start to like my thighs... but I doubt it.

As for my diet... it's going very well, if I do say so myself. I started this new lifestyle back on January 19th weighing in at 144lbs. While that's not terrible, it is really close to the high end for my height (not quite 5'5" but we go with 5'5" because we round up around here). Just over two months later I am down over 10lbs. This morning I weighed in at 133.8lbs. Yes, it's taking some time, but the weight is coming off and I am eating healthier thanks to counting my calories and avoiding fast food as much as possible.

I am only 4lbs away from my goal weight! You know, the weight the DMV thinks I weigh? Yep! Only 4 more pounds to go and I will be under 130! Then will come a new challenge... maintaining that weight! If I can stay between 125 and 129, I will be one happy girl! I haven't seen anything under 130 since I was working 5 years ago at the portrait studio. Being on my feet all day for long hours all day Saturday and Sunday kept me from eating out or eating junk on the weekends. During the week it was easy to eat healthier meals because I was cooking almost every night for my family. It really is important to cook wholesome homecooked meals but man, as a busy mom of 5 kids, all of which play soccer so I am shuttling kids almost every night to one practice or another, it gets hard to cook well balanced meals for the family.

I know there are going to be people out there that say, "Oh, I cook every night! My kids eat a full meal three times a day and it's cooked by me! You think you are busy? We have dance, and gymnastics, and piano, and soccer, and swimming, and that's just for one of my six kids yet I can do it, so can you." Ehhh, what I say is... Good for you! I wish I was that well organized... sadly, I am not. I'm just not the supermom that I claim to be and you know what, that's ok. My kids are healthy, I am healthy, I get some me time during my running, we are busy, we eat Poptarts and Ramen on the go sometimes, and we are happy. It is working for us right now. One day I may not be running around like a chicken with her head cut off and one day soon {read: when soccer season ends} I will get back to cooking more often. For now, though, this is how we get it done.

So yay me! I am working on me, and my kids are enjoying their cereal dinners before rushing out to soccer. I bet they won't look back on their childhood and complain that I force fed them granola bars and frozen gogurt as we were running out the door, and I also bet they won't complain that mom only cooked full meals on occasion. Chances are they will only look back and think, "My mom was a rockstar!" HA! Okay, but I can dream, can't I?

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Soccer 3-14

The kids are on spring break this week so I haven't gotten a chance to post soccer updates. Let's see if I can remember everything.

It was a late morning for us with no ref duty and our first game at 1030am. Kadie's Bombers played one of their best games yet. The passing was great. The defense was great. We only let the other team score once. The coach's daughter scored her first goal and it was amazing. A nice lob right over the goalie! My husband even got a picture of it while I was line reffing. So I lied, I did have to ref but that was because we didn't have any referees. Five different girls scored, one of them being Kadie. She scored TWICE! Although one of those was challenged as being offside but the line ref didn't see it, nor did I, or the center ref. From my angle she appeared to be onside when the ball went into play and she says she was even with the defender. So, regardless, she got the goal. We came out with a 6-1 win!

Sara's Candy Canes played next. It was another rough game. We were missing our star player. I only got to see half of the game because I had to take Adam to his game at another soccer complex but John says Sara took quite a few shots and was getting flack from her coach for not dribbling enough. She didn't end up scoring and we lost. Not sure what the score was since they don't really keep score at that age.

I chose to drop Adam off with his coach for his game and have him bring him back to me at Jacob's game so I could watch at least one of the u12 games. It was their last scheduled game (not sure if there will be more, yet) so I wanted to watch. So I didn't get to watch Adam's Sub Zero take home a 7-2 win. Adam didn't score this time, but he didn't let anyone score on him while he was goalie.

Jacob's Dream FC started thirty minutes late due to the game before us starting late since they had no referees. We only had 7 players and the other team had 9. We had already instructed the boys on how to play and where to play being down two players when the other coach offered to only play 7 as well. We said we would see how the first quarter went and then decide if we wanted to have them play down or offer us players. Jacob made our one goal that quarter. He pretty much drove the ball from one end of the field to the other uncontested. He juked players left and right and showed that team he was a force to be reckoned with. We ended the quarter tied. Amazing for playing down! There was a kid that had just finished a game and we asked if he wanted to play with us, he said he did, so we put him in for the remainder of the game. That still had us down 1 player but we were holding our own just fine. That player ended up scoring for us! We went into halftime up 2-1. Jacob went in at goalie after halftime and the other team ended up scoring, tying it up. Jacob kept up the good work all the way to the end. He took another left footed shot that hooked left and I thought it was going right into the upper 90 but it bounced off the corner instead. The player we picked up then took a nice pass from our defense and scored! The line ref called it offside, however. I was not happy. She says 3 of our players were offside when she made the call and that he was one of them. I still don't think he was but she had a better angle than I did, and she was a parent from that kid's team so she didn't like the call anymore than we did. That won't stop me from saying he wasn't offside though. Anyway, we walked away with a tie which is so great having played down the entire game... but it should have been a win.

Lexi and Jacob had their last middle school game on Thursday. They ended up losing 2-1 or 1-0 but they had a lot of fun playing with their friends from school. Lexi will be starting up with her u14 games soon, just not sure when. She started practice last week... cannot wait to watch my biggest baby in the sport she loves!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Soccer Saturday 3-7

My brain has been in a fog lately so I haven't had the motivation to blog. Let's see if I can remember how Saturday's games went.

First up was Adam's game at 9am. He started out as goalie and no one scored on him. The ref was one of the worst we had. The lack of calls and the calls he did make just didn't make sense. Adam ended up scoring two or three times. He said it was two, but I thought it was three. It was a rough game but we still came out with a 6-2 win!

John had referee duty at 9am followed by his game at 1030am. I was only able to make it over for the last quarter of his game due to Sara's game being at 1015am. Thankfully all our games were at the same soccer complex. I walked over to his soccer field and was told to go away because they were winning. I know he was just joking but I walked away anyway. I watched from near the parking lot and the team held up nicely. Jacob took a shot on goal and it bounced off the crossbar. He drove the ball up a second time but got too far up and looked for a drop instead of trying to take the shot. They ended up losing the ball and it went all the way back towards their goal. They ended up with a 3-2 win! Their first win all season.

Sara frustrated me during her game. She is more of the chase the ball kind of player, rather than playing her position. The other team had a player in the front the entire game that just waited for the ball to pass our last defender (there is no offside in u8) and it worked for her almost every time. They also played two defenders back by their goal which gave us pretty much no options for scoring. Sara finally started listening and playing up in the front, where she was supposed to, and waited for the ball instead of running back towards defense every time. It almost resulted in a goal but she missed. We ended up losing like 4-1 but I was proud of her for finally playing her position.

Kadie's game wasn't until 3pm so we went home in between games. She only played two quarters and didn't score. The referee was frustrating, she even told the coaches to tell the parents to stop talking about the play calls from the sidelines. There was only once I made a comment prior to that and it was only that this is u10, so the girls do not get a redo on throw-ins. If they lift their foot, the ball gets turned over to the other team. And when I made the comment it was in favor of the other team. I still wasn't able to bite my tongue and I wasn't making direct comments to any of the referees, just in general as if I was watching a sport on tv. The game was a close one. We scored first, then they scored. We scored two more times making it 3-1. Then they scored, and we scored again. They scored a final time in the 3rd quarter which made the whole fourth quarter intense. The girls played hard and they had some amazing passes to keep the ball in their possession. We managed to hold them for a 4-3 win!

Lexi and Jacob had two games last week, on Tuesday and Thursday. Jacob played in the game on Tuesday which resulted in a 1-0 loss. On Thursday he wasn't able to play due to not knowing he had to attend tutorial prior to the game. He wasn't happy about it but it seems he learned his lesson since he made sure to attend this week so he could play in their final week. He also missed the first week of games because of his grades, which he is working on. Just wish he would put more effort into his schoolwork, but that is a whole other blog post. Anyway, Thursday's game ended in a 0-0 tie and went into a shootout. They took the first shot and missed. Then we missed, and they missed again. We missed a second time. We both missed on our third and fourth tries. They missed on their fifth shot, as well. Our fifth player took their shot and scored! Had we missed we would have went into a second set of 5 but that final shot gave us the win! They played again last night but I wasn't able to make the game. They finished the game tied 1-1 and went into a shootout again. This time we came away with a loss. The kids really like playing for the middle school. It was a just for fun type of league but it is much more relaxed with the rules. The kids can go out there and be aggressive and the players actually know what they are doing. It's fun to watch but at the same time, frustrating when there is too much shoving. Last year Lexi was hurt by a member of another team, and this year a kid grabbed her arm during a game. She is a pistol though and doesn't take any crap. She puts up a fight and isn't afraid to shove a boy back. I love watching her play co-ed, it is where she excels. Playing on an all girl's team can get frustrating when half the team just doesn't care or doesn't know what they are doing or are afraid of getting run in to. She is not afraid. It is also the only time her and her brother get along. On the soccer field they are teammates... at home they are worst enemies LOL

So there you have it. A pretty good week of soccer, if I do say so myself. So proud of my kids and their ambition on the field... now if they could just be as proactive with their school work and chores, I would be super happy ;)

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Surprise, Surprise

Before leaving the soccer field on Saturday, John informed me their was a gift on our bed for me. I knew it was our dating anniversary, but I didn't think much of it since he didn't really do anything (strike that, he did NOTHING, and pretty much ignored me) on Valentine's Day.

I got home and our houseguest asked where John was. The way she asked was kind of unsettling, like she was mad at him for something. She then suggested I go upstairs. That's when I remembered that he had told me about the gift on the bed. The two of them were weirding me out.

I went upstairs to find a gift wrapped in purple wrapping paper with a silver bow on it. I can only assume he did that because those were our wedding colors. I unwrapped the gift to find it in a Christmas box with the word HO imprinted all over it (as in Ho Ho Ho, Santa Claus, you know). I laughed and then sent him a text poking fun... "What are you trying to say?!" was the caption I sent along with a picture of the box. His response was, "That I couldn't find a box! Now pick one and get ready."

I didn't see that message right away and I opened the box to find two beautiful dresses. I searched all over for some kind of note with instructions (remember, I didn't see the text message), but there were none. Kristi, our friend, was standing in the doorway and I said, "I should probably shower and get ready then, huh?" She said that would be a good idea. She offered up that she was the babysitter and that my husband was taking me out, although she wasn't sure where.

I chose the shorter of the two dresses because it fit me better but that also meant I had to shave my legs. You'd think living in Hawaii would mean my legs are always ready for anything but that's just not true. I managed a quick shower and a half-ass shave job but it was good enough to look and feel pretty. I was pretty much ready when John got home from soccer. All I needed to do was figure out what shoes I was wearing, brush my teeth, and wait for him to get ready.

We left at 415pm for our 515 reservation. I still had no idea where we were going and spent the entire 45 minute drive thinking about where we might be going. He told me he already knew what he was ordering for our meal, so all I had to do was chose a drink when we arrived. I ran down some places in my head that I thought he may have picked and even briefly suspected Red Lobster, even though that is a mainland option, only because he said he knew what he was ordering for me. We ended up at a restaurant called Ocean House in the Outrigger Reef hotel, with beach front seating. The staff was amazing. Twice we were told we didn't look old enough to be celebrating 15 years, which is kind of true. It definitely doesn't feel like it has been that long. He ordered the coconut lobster skewers for our appetizer, the seafood pot for himself, and the filet mignon and lobster tail for me. I ordered a lava flow cocktail for myself and a peach bourbon smash for him. They brought out complimentary bread and our appetizer. The skewers were really good. Our food came out rather quickly and while the lobster tail was good, I didn't really care for the filet mignon but I appreciated his choice in my dinner. We were offered a dessert menu but were too full from dinner to order anything. They then brought us a complimentary sorbet dessert for our anniversary and took a picture of us. The dessert was great and the perfect end to our dinner date. When they brought the bill, they also brought us a complimentary photo print to commemorate our anniversary dinner. It was a great experience, albeit a bit pricey. I don't think we have ever spent that much on dinner alone.

He said the night wasn't over after dinner, so we walked down the beach to the Hale Koa Hotel. He bought us tickets to a comedy show that started at 8pm. We arrived shortly before 730pm. They took our picture before seating us at a table for 6 with 2 other guests. Another couple arrived shortly after that for a full table. I ordered another lava flow and he ordered a gin and tonic. The show was hilarious. Two opening acts and Bo Irvine as the headliner. Bo was so funny. He really didn't even stick to his show because he spent the majority of time joking directly with the audience. He talked a lot about marriage and the hilarity of it, which made it the perfect show for our date... even though we were only celebrating our dating anniversary. The way our table was set up allowed for me to cuddle up next to my hubby, which made it so much better than sitting at a table.

I managed to stay awake for the drive home, even though I was exhausted from the day that started at 630am. We got home around 11pm and finished out our night the only way a great date night should (I'll leave the rest to your imagination).

I was pleasantly surprised by the effort he put into celebrating 15 years together. It was a much welcomed surprise. He had never bought me a dress before. He rarely plans anything for us that doesn't involve a military function. I joked that he cannot spring such a surprise on a woman. Had I known what was planned I could have planned better. I would have made sure to shave my legs, I could have gotten a pedicure and maybe a manicure, as well. I wouldn't have stayed up until midnight the night before knowing we would be up that late again on Saturday. But he did good and I love that he went through all the trouble to plan a surprise date night for me. He even wrote a book inside a card telling me how much he loved me.

It truly amazes me how he can still put in all this effort after all the years we have been together. After putting up with me for so long and our roller coaster of a relationship, he has every right to be done trying but then he does something like this that restores my faith in our life together. I am so happy to call him my husband because he truly does love me unconditionally.

Thank you, baby, for all that you do for our family and for trying to put me first in a life where I always come second to the Army. That bitch may get all the attention, but dammit, I win this time ;)

Soccer Saturday - 2/28

Our day started off bright and early. We had to be in Pearl City at 8am for our first game. Kadie kicked off the day with her game. Followed by ref duty and Sara's game at 10, then Adam & Jacob's games at noon, and another ref duty at 130pm.

Kadie's Bombers started off rough. Kadie began the game as goalkeeper and was scored on twice. In the second quarter, Kadie scored twice tying it up. The first time was a breakaway and the second time was just being in the right place at the right time. She scored a third time but was called offside in an iffy call. I say she wasn't offside since she was even with the last defender when the ball was put into play but it wasn't my call. We kept up the momentum, Kadie assisted with another goal and the other team got off a third goal shortly before the game ended. The Bombers ended with a 6-3 win!

Following that game, Lexi and I helped Kadie's coach with our referee assignment. Lexi and I ran the line while the coach center reffed. Some of the parents on my side of the field were not too happy with some of the calls but they were pretty good calls. At the end of the game I had the other coach (also the guy that runs the ref clinics) say he wanted me! He was surprised that I knew what I was doing even though I had never been to one of his clinics. That comes from 10 years as a soccer mom! I may not always get the call right, but I am pretty good... and being told so by the head ref, that's a major plus.

We missed all of Sara's game but I did get updated by John. Sara scored once and had an assist in a Candy Canes 6-4 win!

We made it over to Adam's game shortly before it started. Adam started out as goalie and no one scored on him! The game went downhill from there. The boys just were not playing their best. It was hot and Adam was worn out. He runs the field and usually doesn't give up but he just didn't seem like he was feeling it that day. The other team was offside several times, that resulted in a goal, and it wasn't called. I was extremely irritated. There was a lot of shoving, too, that went unnoticed. There was one point where the goalie handed the ball to his defender which should have resulted in a penalty kick but that also went without a call. Adam never ended up scoring but I was still proud of his goalkeeping skills. It was a really frustrating game that Team Sub Zero ended up losing 6-1. It was their first loss and a hard one.

I also missed all of Jacob's game since it was at the same time as Adam's. They only had 7 players to start the game so the other team played down to seven, as well. Within the first ten minutes we were losing 2-0. By the end of the first quarter it was 3-0. Jacob ended up scoring on a PK and another player showed up making it 8v8. In the end, Dream FC came away with another loss, 6-1.

When that game ended, John and Lexi had a referee assignment. Just in the first quarter there were a lot of calls for tripping and shoving. It seemed like a tough game to ref and I was glad to not be doing it.

Oh, I forgot, Lexi and Jacob have also started playing soccer with their school. Those games are on Tuesday and Thursday. Jacob should finally be able to play today since he brought his grades up. Last week, only Lexi was able to play (she's the good little girl LoL). The Tuesday game was played versus Kapolei Middle School. The A team, which is the team Lexi is on, lost 3-0. The field was tiny, compared to what she is used to, and she played defense the majority of the game. Kapolei played pretty dirty. I even snapped a picture of one of the boys on their team grabbing Lexi's arm. There was a lot of that going on and the referee wasn't calling it. The Thursday game was against Waianae, and they always play dirty so we were a little worried. That was the game last year that Lexi got tripped and busted up her arm and hip. This year they split the teams into boys and girls instead of A team and B team. The field was even smaller, as were the goals, than Tuesday's game. Lexi played midfield for the majority of the game. I guess one coach likes her as a defender and the other likes her at mid or forward. She almost scored on a header, and she almost scored on a left footed shot, and had she been just a second faster she could have snuck in a goal from a pass but the goalie snagged it before she could get there. The girls ended up with a 1-0 loss but the boys came out with a 1-0 win, so it all evened out. I think the B team won on Tuesday, too. They have another game this afternoon where Jacob will be playing with Lexi on the A team (hopefully), so we will see how that goes.