Survival of the Fitless

A few weeks ago my kids had some friends over for a marathon play date.  For the record, the very word playdate makes me cringe with its cutesy implications & smacks of everything that is wrong with the land of suburbia.  I have never had a play date in my life, although I did go to other peoples houses and play without the need for official naming and so forth.  Anyway, there were these kids at my house, playing all day and at one point they were riding scooters and bikes in front of the house.  Like a dutiful mother, I sat on my paltry excuse for a stoop and watched them zip back and forth and bicker about who had a longer turn on the Razor and who didn't want to use the Jackknife scooter.  Like a playdate, I never had a mother sit on the stoop just to watch over me as I played - if my mom was sitting out on the stoop at all it was to smoke cigarettes and b.s. with the neighbors after dinner.  At one point the kids got bored and decided to take turns riding the baby around in his wagon, a big sturdy ride complete with seatbelts.  The baby was enjoying himself quite a bit and the kids seemed to enjoy pulling him around and taking turns hopping in and out as his passengers.

After a while, thunder threatened our fun and then lightning reared its mysteriously beautiful and frightening head.  I decided that since I was in charge of other peoples children, I best take them inside and away from all the metal, wheeled objects lying about. The girls and I started putting the bikes and scooters in the back yard while the boys were in charge of the wagon.  I saw them out of the corner of my eye hop into it together and position themselves at the top of my pretty steep driveway.  I also saw them wiggle the handle around and scoop it up towards them, knowing full well that they intended to sail joyously down the driveway and into the street.  I muttered a half-hearted 'be careful boys' and continued with my task while silently praying they would pick up enough speed to get all the way across the street and experience a little terror and a lot of fun.  Was this very mature of me?  Certainly not, but I was a kid who set garbage cans up at the bottom of a hill and skated full speed into them, hoping that the bus wasn't coming; I know the joy of moving downhill on wheels.  Just as they were about to set off, my neighbor across the street came over and admonished the boys for not playing safely, thereby forcing me to fake chastise them and usher them in doors.  I was really rooting for them and was more bummed out about their thwarted plan than they appeared to be.

Just the other day, I read an article about the safety and lameness of all the new play structures found around the country.  They're all really sturdy and made of insanely colorful plastic.  They are also low to the ground and are all surrounded by wood chips, or rubber pads in case anyone falls.  Nice to look at, but apparently not all that challenging, disallowing for kids to take risks and adequately cope with fear.  The playgrounds I grew up with were made of metal - slides (you were really taking your life in hand when going down a metal slide in mid-summer heat), swings (without restraining harnesses), and monkey bars (alarmingly and thrillingly high).  There were see saws made of splintery wood and very little, if any padding beneath anything.  It seems to me that the playgrounds of yesteryear really were a test for survival.  If you made it through a childhood of burned thighs, splinters, and falling from high places while playing tag, then you were meant to pass into adulthood as a fairly well adapted human being.  If you didn't have the stamina for such things, you were weeded out at an early age, thereby saving everyone a lot of trouble down the line.  Safe play and plastic play structures make me realize that Darwin just may have been onto something.

This weeks tip:  Blood can be removed from clothing with the use of hydrogen peroxide and cold water.  If you are inclined to do laundry after suffering an injury including bloodletting, wet stain(s) thoroughly with cold water and pour peroxide directly onto stain.  The peroxide will do that weird bubbling thing that makes peroxide so much fun.  You can rub it in and continue applying water and peroxide until the stain is lifted.  Afterwards, place clothing in a load of wash using cold water, hot water will set stains.

You shoot, you score???

When I was in the second or third grade, I decided I wanted to play basketball.  I'm pretty sure one of my friends was going to play and like any good little follower, I was going to play too.  Like most of the other girls on my team, I had never played before but this didn't stop me from joining the team at St. Matthias.  Our first practice was held in the ridiculously small gymnasium that was also being used by a team of teenage girls.  They had half the court and we had the other and our coaches showed us how to make shots by swooping the ball between our legs and where to stand around the key.  At our first game my team only stayed on half the court.  Good thing it was the side of the court we had practiced on, or we would've been completely screwed.  We didn't know that we were supposed to use the whole court and subsequently we lost.  We were trampled.  All it took was that one embarrassing game for us to figure out a pretty frigging important aspect of the game. After each game, my father would take me home and make me watch St. John's college basketball to show me how it was supposed to be done.  That season, all of us little girls learned how to play the game, and probably most importantly, how to lose.  I can assure you, we survived the losing.
Last summer I signed my then three year old daughter up for soccer.  She wanted to play the game her older brother had been playing and I thought it would be a fun activity for her.  And it was, for approximately half an hour.  The remainder of the time was spent crying that she didn't want to run, she wanted to be on her brother's team and that it was too hot.  After about two weeks of cajoling and arguing with her, I stopped taking her.  I was not going to spend my time dragging her around a soccer field only to torture the both of us (and it was really hot).  I also vowed that she would wear the team shirt until she died because it amounted to a hundred dollar tee shirt after I paid the fees for her to be on the team in the first place.  At the end of the season she received a trophy and a certificate.  The girl who played what amounted to one game, got a trophy.  Apparently it's the leagues policy for every kid to receive a trophy regardless of their participation level or proficiency.
This summer, my son is playing baseball.  Machine pitch baseball.  A few summers ago he played tee ball but was bored to tears.  He's seven and a half (about the same age I was when I started playing basketball, mind you) and watching his baseball game is not unlike watching paint dry if you're on a bad acid trip.  Each 'inning' is comprised of every kid on each team getting up to bat.  No one strikes out, no one gets tagged out at base and the inning is over only when each kid has gotten up to bat.  Matter of fact, there are no outs at all.  There were a lot of runs scored, as each inning had about fifteen kids batting, but I couldn't tell you who won because no one was keeping score.  I'm all for slowing down a game for the kids to learn, but shouldn't they learn some of the pretty major parts of the game in the process?  I feel certain that we'll be getting another trophy at the end of this snooze fest of a season.
The troubling thing for me regarding the lack of score keeping, and the trophies given out just for showing up (or not) is that all these kids are learning that there is no competition, there is no winning or losing.  There is just mass movement towards mediocrity that only requires showing your face at a certain place, at a certain time.  I wonder where is the fine tuning of skills, the pride taken in learning how to do something better than others your age, the realization that you really suck at something, and its time to move on?  If we're not careful here, these kids are going to get used to being awarded for producing the least amount possible and getting patted on the back for it with enthusiasm - oh never mind, that's perfect for the adult working world.

This weeks tip: If you have little kids playing sports outdoors, you're going to wind up with some dirty, smelly clothes.  You can use white vinegar to deodorize and help remove stains from their sweaty, grimy gear.  You can remove perspiration stains from clothes by hand washing the item one cup of vinegar and one quart of water.  You can also remove stains from clothes by rubbing the stains with white vinegar and then washing as you regularly would (you can do this with upholstery also).