I'm Not Competitive, Am I?

The picture you see here is what Avery's wearing to school today. It's Crazy Sock Day, a part of the school's week-long drug awareness campaign . . Sock it to drugs or something like that. We dressed her for Red Day yesterday, but it was nothing spectacular . . then when she came home and told me her friend won a prize for the best outfit, the competitive itch kicked in and I concocted this hair brained scheme to ensure victory on Crazy Sock Day. By itself I'm quite sure this story wouldn't be very interesting, but when coupled with what went on last Saturday it really starts to expose a pretty serious flaw of mine.

Avery's soccer game last weekend started much as the rest of them have, a handful of players doing most of the work and the rest practically sleepwalking up and down the field. It was chilly, wet, and our first 9 a.m. game, so the usual lethargy was compounded by the proximity to breakfast. Her team was undefeated coming in, having tied once but won convincingly in the other 5 games, so when it became obvious early that we were going to get thoroughly smoked if somebody didn't wake these kids up, I turned up my volume. Substantially. Well, to make a short story long, my attempts at motivation bubbled over into an obnoxious display of referee taunting that you'd expect to see on Montel Williams. That's right, for a brief moment my competitive streak turned me into that guy. I mean, we really were getting hosed out of some calls . . God, no way, just shut up. The other coach said to me, just passing by, "Hey, it's just youth soccer, chill out." So I sucked it up and apologized to him and the referees after the game. I've gotta get a handle on this competitiveness before I get banned from the soccer league and am relegated to a spectator!

Well, tomorrow's Wear Your Favorite Hat Day, so I'm off to figure out our strategy on winning that one. Maybe I could safety pin a bunch of hats together and make her look like the Cat In The Hat . . or maybe I should just concentrate on a plan for Crazy Hair Day on Friday. Thursday is the only day with no wiggle room in the plan . . it's Wear Your Favorite Team Jersey Day, and I've already got the Vandy football jersey laid out!