Soccer Practice Blues

Friday nights in spring are special around here. In the fall, Ben has football games every Friday night. In the winter, it's basketball games, although not every Friday night, at least some of them. And Friday doesn't feel the same when Ben has to work in the evenings. But in spring, no one has to work on Friday nights. Combine that with the weather starting to get nice, we like to go out on Friday nights. Sometimes shopping and dinner, sometimes just out to dinner and then home for movie and a popcorn - it doesn't matter - we can finally celebrate the end of the week as a family.

So we were a little disappointed that Sam now has soccer practice on Tuesday and Friday nights. I understand the coach's theory - with games on Saturday mornings and the team being made up of 6 year old boys, the closer the practice is to the actual game the better chance the boys will remember the strategies learned. But neither of us really want to spend Friday evenings sitting, freezing, at the soccer field.

Last night was the first night of this, and we had to change around our plans - we were supposed to go paint pottery at Color Me Mine - going the last Friday of the month and participating in their "Pajama Party" saves us $25 in painting fees. But we didn't want Sam to miss his first practice, so we are painting pottery today, at the full price. We figured that it was more important to keep the family activity intact than it was to save $25. And Maria and I went shopping for her spring clothes while the boys were at practice. But when everyone got home, we were all exhausted, laid around until the kids went to bed, and it just felt like a school night. I'm sure we'll get used to it. I just feel like now our spring Fridays have been stolen from us as well.

By the way, shopping with Maria was fun. There were lots of sales, we knew just what she needed, and we were able to find everything at a few places at the mall. Sometimes I'm sad that she's too old for me to buy the cute matchy outfits at Gymboree, but shopping together was fun too. Today is Sam's turn, although he doesn't need much since he gets hand-me-downs from Mason. It will be interesting to see what he picks - how much he even cares. But I wanted to be fair to each kid - if Maria got to pick out her stuff, he should be able to pick out his stuff.