The end of the season

Tonight was our last hockey practice of the season. As I started the oh-so-familiar routine once again, I thought how glad I was that the season was over. Like every other Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, I rushed everyone home from school, hurried to get the older boys started on their homework, raced to get dinner on the table by 4:00, packed up an evening's worth of snacks, drinks and diapers, and somehow got 4 distracted boys out of the house and into the car. Through it all, I kept telling myself, "this is the last time you have to do this this year. Just be patient and breathe, and get through this evening." It worked. We made it into the car on time, sailed through the traffic on the expressway, and pulled into the rink 15 minutes before ice time.

By this point in the year, it seems like hockey season has been going on forever. In truth, it has only been 6 months. But the commitment is so extreme, and you spend so much time at the rink, that it weighs on you. Since September, we have spent 2-3 hours at the rink, 5 days a week. And as much as I dread the rushed afternoons and the homework cramming stress, making dinner at lunch each day, and dragging four boys through rush hour traffic to and from the rink, I love hockey.

As I rounded everyone up to come back home from the rink tonight, I felt like I was leaving college for the summer, or heading home from overnight camp. Saying "goodbye," and "we'll see you in September," seemed so strange, so wrong. For each child who makes the commitment to play on a hockey team, there are parents and siblings who (willingly or not!) make the same time commitment to make it possible. During the season, the rink is a huge part of our life together. Jack and Elliot play pick-up street hockey with the older kids while they take their turns on the ice. They do their homework in the referees locker room. Mattie and Theo play in the warm waiting room with the other younger siblings. The parents chat, watching the action on the ice, and more or less keeping an eye on the little ones. For me, it's a rare opportunity to be with so many other families with 3, 4 or more children. It's a place where kids are allowed to run around, and play largely unsupervised with each other, two things I'm finding increasingly rare these days. No one puts on airs or fancy clothes to sit around the frigid rink. We all huddle together in down coats and hooded sweatshirts and complain about how hard it is to fix dinner and get homework done on hockey nights. While no one would argue about the healthiness of it, we let our kids order candy, Powerade or frozen pizza from the snack bar, and watch the them share and enjoy it. There is no fear of dirty looks or judging stares from other parents. We're a team - kids and adults, on the ice and off. To me it's simple, and wonderful, and welcoming. And, just as I knew I would, I think I miss it already.

Maybe it's time to start looking for a summer hockey league, just to get us through to September...

Fall down. Get back up. Fall down. Get back up. Fall down. Get back up. 

Hockey teaches kids more than just how to skate.

Snowflakes and Compliments

It's almost Spring in Boston (or so we keep telling ourselves!) Every time I gaze out the windows, I see one of our special memories. We decorated the windows of our house with snowflakes this winter. It started way back in November, before a single flake had fallen, when the thought of winter still felt inviting and pleasant. I'm not sure exactly where I got the initial inspiration, but once we started making snowflakes, we couldn't stop! Elliot and Jack helped out as well, making lots of twelve-sided beauties. From a pack of recyclcd printer paper, each one was cut out individually, and they are all beautifully unique. I'm getting ready to take them down for Spring, and I'm not sure if we'll ever do it again, but I hope the kids remember the winter we looked out at the world through snowflakes, and smile.

We also started a new tradition recently that I call the compliments jar. We have colored index cards that anyone can write a compliment down on, then fold it in half, and drop it in the jar. (The lid doesn't have a top, just a rim.) The only rule, is that you can't write a compliment about yourself. About once a week, when we are all together, we take out all the folded cards, and take turns reading the compliments. Everyone loves hearing the praise! I do most of the writing, but Jack and Elliot have also joined in and added compliments not just about their siblings, but about Ted and me as well. I try to think of at least one thing to compliment someone on each day, so we usually end up reading 5-8 cards at a time. I often notice the kids peering into the jar, to see if any new compliments have appeared. Their eyes light up as they ponder who they might about!