Bend It Like Rollie

In our quest to shape Rollie into a professional soccer player (who will then go on to marry an ex-Spice Girl, move to LA and be named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People), we enrolled him in our local Under 5 soccer league.

Let me preface this by saying that I am so not one of those parents. You know what I mean...the ones who get all worked up, think their kid isn't getting enough playing time, yell at coaches and refs, and ultimately punch other parents in the head out of pure frustration and lack of anger management skills. I don't project my own failed attempt at soccer onto my son. I don't live vicariously through my children's successes because I wasn't quite good enough to make the US woman's olympic soccer league. Or even get off the bench much on my JV soccer team.

That is, I wasn't one of those parents until I started watching Rollie play. Because now that I've spent approximately 45 minutes sweating on the sidelines of a tiny soccer field yelling like an over-caffinated cheerleader as a flock of children follow a rolling ball around a field like a school of clumsy fish, I can see how parents get themselves whipped up into a tizzy. I sure jumped up and down waaay more than a woman in my delicate condition should have been, and I'm usually about as excitable as Ben Stein at a monster truck rally. Good thing Rollie's not yet capable of being embarrassed by his parents.