Soccer Report, and Stuff

[przed]

Tonight, we won! Decisively! The final score was 4 - 1.

Of course, it didn't hurt that the other team only had 4 players show up, and the ref let us play 4 a side. (We just had 7 players, but that was enough that we could give the kids regular rests so they weren't knackered like the other team.) But everyone mostly had fun, and Ros continues to improve, so yay all 'round!

In non-soccer news, this morning I did my first Tae Kwan Do class in two weeks--couldn't go for a week because the Sweetie had the car up north, the class starts before the subways starts running, and I didn't feel like getting up at 5 a.m. so I could walk to class, then the studio was closed last week--and I've massively messed up my elbow. My left elbow. Did I mention I'm left handed? (Apparently I was a leetle too enthusiastic about throwing those jabs this morning.) I got a million acupuncture needles in it tonight, and I'm hoping resting it for a bit is going to do the trick. Darn this getting old thing.

I'm also finding myself rather more gutted than I would have thought over the news that Gary Barlow and his wife lost their baby over the weekend. I think in part because it's dredged up a lot of the crap I went through dealing with fertility and adoption and desperately wanting a child. But also just because it's a horrendously awful thing to happen to anyone. And I hate that it took a tragedy for a member of Take That to get mentioned in our local paper.

I'm also struggling with what, if anything, to tell Ros. She loves babies, and was interested in hearing about Mark's baby, but I don't know that she needs to know that a baby has died. It's not that I want to hide her from mortality. She's already dealt with deaths in the family. She was two when my dad died, and five when my aunt died last year. While she was sad when my dad died, and kept asking where grandpa was, she was very deeply affected by my aunt's death. But Take That is just a fun, happy place for her, and I don't want to take that away. Though if she remembers Gary was supposed to have a baby and asks about it, I'm not going to lie.

Comments

[rosie55.livejournal.com]

Yay for the match success - and it sounds as though everyone had fun, too so that's great when the match could have been called off.

The news about Gary and Dawn's baby is very sad - all those months of joy and anticipation gone in an instant. I'm perhaps particularly sensitive to that at the moment as my daughter is expecting her first baby next month.

I don't think there is anything harder in life than losing a child. I hope you find a way to talk to Ros about this if she asks. We are not good as a society at dealing with death in these days, and probably we all like to think that childbirth is "safe" as, of course, mostly, it is.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Initially the other team were going to default and we were going to lend them a player and just do a friendly. But the ref was okay with us going four a side, and it meant they all got to run around a bit, which is entirely the point.

That news is incredibly sad, and I can understand you being extra sensitive about it. (Best wishes for your daughter!)

We always try to be honest with Ros, even about difficult topics like death. Which can be hard, for us as well as her. (After my dad's funeral Ros was trying to wrap her head around the burial, and was asking question after question about the process. I tried to answer her as best as I could, but I finally had a bit of a wobbly.)

[rosie55.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the good wishes. I should have said "at least in Western Society" about the safety of childbirth, of course but I'm hoping West London Maternity facilities come up trumps for my daughter!

I can imagine why you had a wobbly in the end, too about all the questions about your father's funeral. And I think that as they start to be able to understand such things, and to feel empathy our children sometimes need to know that we too can have doubts and fears and sad feelings. Not all the time and not too heavy but just now and again. I can remember once my children were reproaching me for some aspect of parenting they considered I had got wrong (like not allowing them to watch certain programs or play certain games on the computer or something like that, I expect!)and I told them that there was no absolute right way of parenting that parents could read from some magical rule book and guarantee was perfect and that we all had to work it out as we went along, according to our own values and our own children. They seemed quite surprised by the thought that I didn't claim to know it all or always to get it right, I seem to remember! You just have to go with your gut feeling on some things and it will be different for your child than it was for mine.

I always think how lucky Ros is to have such caring parents who allow her to get the most out of life but also try to treat her as a person.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the West London Maternity facilities will be brilliant.

I treat parenting like I treat teaching. Sometimes you have to admit that you don't know something, and then you go and do your research and make the best decision you can. But you're right that things are different for every child. And frequently they're different for the same child on different days.

Our goal is to raise Ros to be a smart and independent kid. I'm sure we don't always get things right, but we try.