Well, my youngest is still revelling in the excitement of being on his first "real team." He wears his uniform on an almost daily basis so everyone will know he's on a "real team." Multiple times a day he asks when the next practice is and when he gets to play in a "real game." The kid is intense!

Not so, in the case of some of his teammates. I already mentioned last time the cute little girl who stormed over to her mother, overwhelmed with indignation when my son had the audacity to steal the ball from her during a drill. Well, that adorable little thing isn't the only one who isn't quite on top of her game yet.

Another girl has been to every single practice, but has yet to participate. She clings to her parent with one tiny hand and a stuffed bunny with the other. Her Mom or Dad leads her around the practice field, trying to encourage her to kick the ball. She breaks down into tears at the pressure, and generally seems miserable to be there. Personally if I were the parent, I think I might make the call that she just wasn't ready to start soccer, and I'd be afraid that forcing her onto the field might turn her off sports long term. But they keep her out there, speaking soft words of encouragement.

The other day it seemed that the little girl had had a breakthrough. The coach was doing the drill where one kid dribbles the ball toward the goal, trying to score, while another one plays defense and tries to take it away. He asked this little girl if she would try it, but she had no interest in having one of her teammates trying to take the ball away from her. The coach offered to be the one trying to take it from her, with the obvious plan being to let her school him so he could compliment her on her good kicking, but she shook her tiny head. No, she wasn't interested. So the coach asked if she would dribble down the field without anyone playing defense. Her Dad could hold her hand. She could just dribble down and score.

That got her interest. She cocked her head and considered the suggestion. Just her, the ball, and the goal. No pressure. No worries. I'm sure she envisioned what it would be like to score that goal. With a small smile, she nodded her head.

Everyone got out of the way and cheered her on as she tapped the ball down the field with her tiny cleats. She still held tightly to her Dad's hand, but a grin spread across her face as she got really close to the goal and tapped the ball in.

Did I mention she was really close to the goal? As she made that last kick, she actually got her cleat tangled up in the netting of the goal and fell down. Not hard, because she wasn't going very fast, but it was enough to kill her joyous post-goal buzz. Her little face crumpled and, once her father had untangled her, she was done for the day. No post-goal, Mia Hamm-style celebration for her.

She has a couple of weeks to recover. The "off-week" my son has been complaining about may be just what she needs to bounce back and take the field by storm.

Or then again, this could be the beginning of a very long season for that poor little girl!

Watching four-year olds play organized sports is an interesting combination of pain and pleasure. Pain because, if you're true sports fanatics like my husband and I, the games don't even come close to resembling the true sport since the kids know nothing about the rules and have no skills developed yet. Pleasure because, even if their team loses 100 to 0, it's fun to watch the kids with all their unbridled enthusiasm.

My youngest just started soccer, and he takes it very seriously. Immediately after being assigned to a team, we ran into his coach at the church festival. The coach is a funny guy who is great with kids, and he was telling my son in dramatic fashion about how for the next few weeks he should, "practice soccer, eat with your soccer ball, sleep with your soccer ball," etc... There had been a few nights since when, just as I think my son is about to drift off, he realizes his soccer ball is still in the garage. Let's just say it's hard to explain to a four-year old what it means to say something is "just a figure of speech."

Maybe it's because he has three older siblings and, as a result, has seen more than his share of soccer games, but my son was really ready to be on his first real team. Some of the other kids definitely hadn't had similar exposure to the sport, and at times it was pretty darn amusing.

At one of the first practices, the coach split the kids up between two lines. One line took turns dribbling the ball toward the goal and trying to score. The other line started out to the side and tried to intercept the dribbler and get the ball away. His first time up, my son was playing defense against a cute little girl with curly black hair who looked like a little princess.

The girl started dribbling toward the goal, totally focused on the ball. My son swooped in from the side and, as the coach had told the defense to do, kicked the ball away from her.

The little girl let out a screech like you wouldn't believe! She stared in horror at my son, looked around as if confused about why none of the adults were stepping in, and then stomped over to the sidelines where her mother was watching.

"Did you see that? That boy ran over and took my ball away from me!"

All the parents laughed quietly as the mother tried to explain the concept behind the drill, and how my son had done nothing wrong. It was part of the game. The coach came over and kindly explained to her that now it was her turn to go to the other line, and she would be the one who got to try to take the ball away from someone.

So she got in line with fierce determination. When I saw that she was up against my son again, I was afraid she was going to totally take  him out. He started dribbling, she charged forward, and she snatched the ball up into her hands and stormed off with it, glancing over her shoulder at him to make sure he'd learned his lesson.

By the end of the season I'm sure she'll understand a lot more about the game. But in the meantime, I think the coach and parents are in for a show!

Lollipop Soccer. It's not just a sport, it's a comedy!

I love checking out the blog Jane, Candid. It is filled with humor, great pictures, and stories I can relate to.

And boy can I relate to the story the author was telling in a recent posting about her son's summer camp experience. My oldest went to Boy Scout camp for the first time this summer, and it was touch-and-go from a homesickness standpoint. I totally love how she handled it in her story. I encourage you to check it out here !

My daughter has a Jekyll and Hyde thing going for her. One minute she's picking on one of her brothers, and the next she is showing her nurturing side. Most of the time, though, I think she's a very compassionate soul. For example...

The other day a friend invited the kids and me to their lake house for the day. We had a great time. Their dock is elevated 10' so they can park their boat beneath, and the platform created makes a fantastic diving board that provided hours of entertainment for the kids. We swam, dove, had lunch... and tubed. And it was in the tubing that my daughter showed off her nurturing side.

My youngest son is a daredevil. Anything the older kids can do, he is certain he can do too. And he's tubed before, so he hopped right on between my daughter and her friend. Our hostess, who was driving the boat, kept it relatively slow and tried to avoid sending them over any high wakes. It wouldn't do for a 4-year old to fall off. The life jacket would insure that he was safe, but I hate to think how scared he would be, floating in the water and waiting for the boat to turn around to come pick him up. We had explained the procedure and he'd seen the older boys fall, but we hoped he would have a smooth ride.

Unfortunately another boat on the lake flew by, creating a large wake we couldn't avoid. My little guy flew off and into the water. The two girls were holding on tight and stayed on the tube.

About thirty feet after my son fell off, before our boat could begin to turn around, my daughter jumped off the tube and swam quickly back to her brother to keep him company. Twenty feet later, my daughter's friend jumped off too and joined them. My youngest didn't seem concerned in the least about his fall, but it was heart-warming to see the way my daughter and her friend made sure he wouldn't be alone in the water! The kids climbed back on the tube and took right off, none the worse for the wear!

And then on the way home from the lake house my daughter was fighting with her youngest brother over potato chips again.

Sigh! At least they're good to each other when it counts!

We attended a wedding this weekend. It was a beautiful event and the reception afterwards was a blast. It was very educational, because the ongoing questioning and commentary by my four-year old proved very enlightening. I thought I knew how things worked, but now I see that I have a lot to learn!

During the ceremony itself, my little guy couldn't get a good view of the wedding ceremony. We were way off at one side and about halfway back. He could see the bride and groom well, for they were at the top of some steps near the altar, but some of the wedding party was below his field of view. So his attention was on the happy couple, as it should have been.

Him: Do they have kids?

Me: No, not yet. But they probably will some day.

Now lets skip forward a couple of hours to the wedding reception. The leader of the band is introducing the wedding party. Immediately preceding the bride and groom are two tiny ring bearers and a flower girl. This is the first my son has seen of them.

Him: Oh, look! They've got kids now!

So that's how it works! I knew the expression, "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage," but I hadn't realized the children actually arrived while the bride and groom were still at their wedding reception!

I guess this means I can put off the whole "birds and bees" talk for quite a few more years!

Well, vacation is over and I think I survived with my sanity intact. But just barely. If the 900 mile ride with 4 kids and a dog didn't push me over the edge, then I guess nothing will!

Before the vacation even began, I knew entertainment would be a challenge. I needed to know the kids would be distracted enough that I wouldn't have to put up with the dreaded, "How much further now?" question every five minutes. I also wanted to prevent all-out warfare between the kids, which seemed likely with them all penned in together for so long. So my goal was to pack each kid's backpack with a bunch of items that would keep their attention for quite a while. And I also made sure that none of the kids knew what they were getting ahead of time, so the surprise would add to the fun.

First in the backpacks, I put library books. Since I was the one picking them out for the kids, some of them kind of flopped. Others really held their interest, though. And it was cheap entertainment!

Next I went to a local education store. My son had been talking about a game called Rush Hour , which I had seen there. That entertained the three older kids for quite a while. The only drawback is that it had pieces that could be dropped. Somewhere in the bowels of our van there is a green truck that, I would hope, will one day resurface. Also at this store I picked up a couple of mechanical puzzles. Not a Rubix cube, but challenging toys along those lines. They were a hit too. Now that the trip is over, I may hide them away and bring them out for the next road trip.

I had many reservations about bringing along art supplies, and with good reason. The few that did get packed up in their backpacks got dropped. I didn't need the worry of trying to find microscopic caps to markers, crayons that were likely to melt into the carpet if not removed from the car, etc...  As much as I'd like to encourage the kids artistically, the car doesn't seem to be the place to do it.

Then of course there were DVDs. I really wish portable DVD players had been around when I was a kid. Especially after dark when the kids weren't tired yet and yet they couldn't see to read or play games, the videos were a hit. In the few months leading up to the trip, I frequented the clearance table at Blockbuster. I stumbled across several good ones on a 5-for-$20 sale, and I was set!

Then there was the biggest hit of the trip... and it still stuns me that this kept them occupied for so long. The most invaluable thing I packed was not something that cost me a dime. It was a map of the United States that the kids could color in as they identified license plates from each of the states. Here's an example from eduplace.com . I swear, my kids were completely captivated for HOURS! They're still missing a handful of states, but it ended up being a cooperative effort, and it even had the side benefit of teaching them some geography!

I'm sure there were many other things I could have brought along that would have been equally entertaining. I'd love to hear others' ideas, because I'm sure this was just the first of many long road trips for my crew.

So... any other success stories out there?

I was wondering how my younger two kids would react the first time they saw the ocean. They're familiar with bodies of water the size of lakes and rivers, but not with the vastness of the Atlantic. Not with the glorious surf, just waiting to be jumped into. Not with the miles of beach extending as far as the eye can see. Naturally, being the obsessed mother than I am, I had to capture the moment on video.

First I ran ahead and got the camera set up. I was on a dune that prevented the kids from seeing the ocean until they actually crested the dune. They kids approached, already fascinated with all the sand that was everywhere. And then they saw it. I guess the older one had seen pictures often enough to where he wasn't completely shocked.

But then there was the younger, more adventurous one. His eyes widened and he took purposeful strides toward the water like a man on a mission.

- "Daddy, we forgot my life jacket. You'd better go home and get it!"

I don't know. Maybe you had to be there. But the sight of that tiny little guy approaching that huge ocean with such confidence -- all he needed was a life jacket -- really tickled me! And sure enough, before long he was out there alongside the rest of us, getting knocked down by waves and gleefully popping back up!

Boy Scout Camp. Six days and nights at a location 2 hours from home. My oldest son has done plenty of day camps, but this is the first time he has gone away for a week. Going into it, I wasn't sure how either of us would react to the separation. As it turns out, he is having a blast (he got to call home last night to tell us that he'd won a volleyball tournament), and I have the overwhelming urge to clean his room.

Now, I could say this urge to clean stems from the fact that this is an opportunity I can't pass up. My son doesn't throw anything away. For example, I think he has the wrappers of every single pack of baseball cards he's ever bought... and he's bought quite a few. It's like he thinks they'll be worth something someday. Personally I think they create an eyesore, and I'd love to get rid of them.

I could also say his absence provides a good opportunity to purge his drawers of clothing that he holds onto even though he has gotten too big to fit into them. Shirts that are two size too small for him but that he loves take up too much drawer space. I could put them away for when our middle son grows into them, and my oldest son probably wouldn't even realize it. And then the next time we put away laundry, everything would fit in the drawers.

I could go through his bookcase this week. A lot of the books he's accumulated through the years are now well below his reading level and should be passed down to the younger kids. Once again, this would create more room for the books that do belong there.

So I could say this urge to clean is my response to an opportunity I just can't pass up to take care of messes and organizational issues that have been bothering me for years. But the truth is more complex. In reality, I want to clean his room to make it a comfortable oasis to come home to so that he'll never want to leave me again! I want to make his bed with the softest sheets and pillows, organize everything so that it looks welcoming and clean, and generally make it seem like heaven when he gets back from a week crammed into tents with other sweaty boys who are taking the opportunity of being away from their parents to avoid bathing and other sanitary measures.

Who knows... if I do it well enough, maybe he'll stay with us forever!

Then again, by this time next week he could be aggravating me, arguing with his siblings, and generally making me wish I could send him back to camp!

This just makes me wonder... how am I going to survive these kids going off to college someday?

Well, I'm off to do my son's windows. I'll think about future separations some other day, and just deal with my current sonsickness for now! 

Okay, so I've been lax about posting recently. A combination of having my house torn apart (remodeling) and hosting a large number of college buddies for a weekend of debauchery (if you can call spades debauchery) left me with very little free time for indulging in writing. But now I'm back!

And I'm inspired! The local group of SCWBI  (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) just sent me an email notifying me of an upcoming online writer's conference August 10-12 with Middle Grade Fiction as its focus. And did I mention it is FREE! And the agents listed are BIG! For anyone who is interested, the conference is called WriteOnCon .

Check it out!

I know several larger families, but I consider our household with four young children to be fairly good sized. We certainly have our share of chaos. And the kids certainly have mastered the art of using the chaos to fly beneath the radar to get away with things they shouldn't.

My youngest in church is a good example of this, although fortunately we were on to him from the very beginning.

My four year old has found communion fascinating from the very beginning. What is that mysterious food that is only handed out to the adults and older children? What delightful delicacy are we keeping from him? It's obviously an example of age discrimination.

When our son was two and three years old, we would carry him up with us in our arms when we went for communion. He would try to snatch it out of the priest's hands, but we were always quick enough. We soon learned to keep him on our outside hip, while accepting communion far enough from him that his little arms could not reach. It was a good solution.

Then he realized that his middle brother, the seven year old, didn't go up for communion. He lets everyone pass him as he waits patiently for the legal communicants to return. So when baby brother decided to stay seated next to him while we went up to the front of the church, it seemed ideal. Little did we know, it was all part of a scheme to get our guard down.

The little guy sat next to his big brother, looking so angelic! He smiled politely at the other churchgoers as they walked passed. My husband, my two older childred and I took our turns at the front of the church receiving the host and then turned to return to our seats.

And there was only one child waiting for us instead of the two we expected. The youngest had waited until we were otherwise occupied before slipping down the row to take his place in line.

It wasn't a huge deal. My husband doubled back, grabbed the kid, and let him receiving a quick blessing from the priest before heading back to the pew. The kid was disappointed that he didn't get anything to eat, but at least he didn't squawk about it. It made me wonder though...

How does God view stealing communion?!?