Hockey Mom to the EXTREME!

As I've mention before, hockey consumes a large portion of our lives. I knew this was going to happen when I signed the kids up, so I'm not particularly perturbed about it. Do I like having to lug all four kids (half of whom are sick) to the rink right after school for Sam's game? No, thank you very much, but it's not the end of the world. And since he has hockey four days a week, if he misses one here and there I don't lose any sleep over it.

What makes it bearable is how much they seem to love it. Sam is a madman out there, and while Lucy has been slower to come around, she's been having a much better time lately. She's made a big jump in her skating ability recently, and she can probably skate backwards better than Sam can. Not falling down so often makes her much happier out on the ice.

But I think the biggest reason she's liking hockey more and more these days is because of this one coach out there. Oh, and did I mention that this coach also happens to be her mother? As in ME? Yes, according to Lucy I am the best mom hockey coach ever! Never mind the fact that I'm really just an on ice volunteer mostly tasked with pleasant job of herding the kids and administering sips of water and/or hugs when someone is crying.

(Funny side note: somehow in the above sentence I accidentally typed 'hits' instead of 'hugs' which, while appropriate for hockey in general is not so appropriate for hockey with four and five year old kids!)

Now, with everything else going on in my life, you'd think that maybe I'd pass on being a hockey 'coach', but let me let you in on a little secret. I love it! I love being on the ice. I love helping the kids learn to hold their hockey stick. I love that some of the kids (besides Lucy) really seem to like me, too! At the end of each practice we play a little game of tag, and one kid makes it his goal in life to freeze me. A little boy who just started after the new year came up to me on Monday night to show me how he wasn't crying, because last week I had to sit with him on the bench for ten minutes while he wept. There are more than a few little girls out there, too, and they are awesome. When we're running drills, two girls are always my go-to kids to demonstrate because they've already mastered them.

So even though I probably look half a fool out there in my dad's too big helmet, I'm going to keep on 'coaching' Lucy's mini-mite team. We're both having a blast, and at the very least, I stay a lot warmer skating around then I do parking my butt in the bleachers!

She loves it when we're on the same team!