Pages Written... 3 so far today
Listening to... Evanescence
Exercise Done... um...

Yesterday elder son took another leap in growth. He played three soccer games in one day as part of the area tournament (against Malibu, 8am; Newbury Park, 10:30am; and Agoura, 1pm, in that order).

His team beat Malibu, 3 to 1. (They were a B rated team; son's is an A rated team.) During the game with Newbury Park, a C rated team, one kid was gunning for my son so hard, he got knocked over several times. Which wouldn't have been so bad on its own, until elder son collided with the goalie and the goalie's foot/elbow/hip/head (not sure which) caught son's knee. Knocked him out of the game at the top of the second quarter.

It swelled, we put ice on it and thought of hubby's two knee surgeries. We even had a couple of nurses on hand, both of who advised that if he wasn't willing to put weight on it, he shouldn't play the rest of the day. So he sat on the sidelines, agonizing. The Newbury Park team played dirty - two handed shoving, full body leaning, tumbling down in hopes to get a penalty called against our team - and refs who were blind and didn't call half the crap that happened. It didn't matter, they still went down, 2-0. We win again.

Gave son ibuprofen. He kept ice on it, ate his peanut butter sandwich and half a banana, drank a ton of water, and rested. When the team got back from lunch at Wendy's, Coach came over. Treated him like a "real" coach would - does it hurt when I do...? We were about to face the other team in our group of four who had also beat the Malibu and Newbury Park teams in shutouts. The Agoura A team were solid, and our coach really wanted my son in there. Gave son more ibuprofen.

Hubby got son up and walking, then jogging lightly, and the next thing I know he's got his cleats back on, a rubber knee brace around his knee, and is back in the game. Woo! And uh oh!

He was instrumental in blocking goals, and our two teams battled 0-0 until we finally scored in the bottom of the 3rd quarter. We were justifiably jubilant.

Then son and another of our teammates got tangled with one of theirs in the box, and the other side was given a penalty kick. (Bad call, as son had his feet on the ball but the ref didn't see it. But it was an otherwise well-called game.) 17 seconds left in the game. They make the kick, of course, and the score is 1-1 - the other team is jubilant, because they've now won our pod of games, come in first (23 points to our 20 - it's a silly system that I'm not gonna explain here).

The Agoura coach shook our coach's hand and said he didn't want to meet our team in the finals tomorrow.

Well, after waiting about for the other games to be finished, we get the news. Our team won the wildcard spot, and guess who we play first this morning? Yep, the Agoura team we played last yesterday.

And this time, we're gonna win. If we don't it'll be something of a relief, but these kids hang so well together as a team - they deserve to go on to Bakersfield and the California finals. That would be sweet.

But elder son has learned some interesting lessons about his body, sports, sacrifice, and how to handle pain in motion.

He grew up a little more yesterday.