A Rather Blustery Day/Weekend

This is a picture of all the dirt and wind blowing around the soccer field yesterday. I found myself thinking of the song from Winnie the Pooh this weekend:

Hum, dum, dum, dee, dee, dum
Hum, dum, dum
Oh the wind is lashing lusterly
And the trees are thrashing thrusterly
And the leaves are rustling gusterly
So it's rather safe to say
That it seems that it may turn out to be
It feels that it will undoubteadly
Looks like a rather blustery day today
It seems that it may turn out to be
Feels that it will undoubteadly
Looks like a rather blustery day today

I don't know if you can see DS#1 under this blanket. He and some of his teammates are huddled underneath it on the sidelines. At first when I saw this photo on the computer, I thought my lens was dirty. On closer inspection, it was dirt and grass being blown around. On the up side, DS#1's team was undefeated this weekend. They won all four of their games and took first place in the tournament. They didn't win any games during the Fall season, so this is a very new and welcome feeling to win games.

DS#2 isn't even in this cluster of boys huddled on the sideline, but these are his teammates. I guess they weren't lucky enough to have a blanket, but they were trying to protect themselves from all of the blowing stuff by pulling their shirts over their faces. DS#2's team also did very well yesterday. They won 9-0 and 8-1. Today the scores were 4-3 and 0-0. That sounds like a decent record, but their last game was played against a team that was one point ahead of them in the tournament because they had two "shutout" games and our team only had the one. So, even though they tied the last game, they lost the tournament by one point.

What was more upsetting, however, was the fact that DS#2 didn't get to play AT ALL during that last game. There was one other boy that also did not play at all and his Dad was very upset as well. At this level, they're supposed to be more focused on getting the kids to all play as much as possible, for the experience. DH and I have some issues over their team manager wanting to win games, even if it means that the kids don't all get to play, or some play much more than others. We're trying not to talk about it too much with DS#2 around, however, because we don't need him getting mad about it. He's a smart kid, though, and he knows he didn't get to play and he's wondering why. He is already very sensitive and like many kids at this age, he has very little self-confidence. We do not want this to knock him down even farther. Hopefully I'll be reporting more on this issue this week.

I don't want to make this a downer post, so I'm going to post this photo also. Yesterday I went upstairs to the gameroom to change DS#3's diaper. I found this. I thought at first that DS#2 had set this up for his baby brother, but he later denied it. DD was with me and she denied it as well, so DS#3 must have done this himself! This is taking the lining up business he was doing before to a whole new level!

Yesterday evening, I was trying to change DS#3 into his pajamas. He got upset and wouldn't let me put his pants on. He kept trying to say something and it wasn't until I realized he was saying, "Choo Choo" that I understood. He wanted to wear his train pajamas instead! This totally cracked me up (and DH too), but I worried about what would happen when this one set of pajamas goes into the laundry!

My parents left today for home. They were such a big help, especially yesterday. We left the younger two kids with them while we were out on those dusty, windy soccer fields. Here, DS#3 is upset because he had finished eating a peach and Lola wouldn't give him any more. She couldn't give him anymore because she didn't have anymore. That was NOT an answer he wanted to hear! Luckily, a short while later, he settled for some pear instead.

Since Mom and Dad left this morning, we had all the kids with us. Luckily, although it was still windy, the wind was not quite as bad as yesterday. It was, however, down to the 30s this morning, so the two youngest kids and I watched DS#1's game from the car. DH was on the other side of the fields watching DS#2's game since both games were at the same time. I put DS#3 in the front seat with me and he just loved it. Can you tell? :)