Ye Gods And Little Chickens, What A Morning

Spent more than four hours at the boys' school this morning.  I am officially basketballed out for the week.

I've mentioned before that I am an assistant coach for two of my kids' teams, The Girl's and Thing Two's.  Their practices are consecutive on Saturday mornings.  As it happened, the head coaches for both teams were absent today; one sick and the other at a business meeting.  The Girl's practice went okay, a little more chaotic than usual, but manageable.  The second practice, on the other hand, had the proverbial five fingers.

Of the kids on this team, four are still trying to figure out the basics of the sport, three play very well, one cannot either sit still or stop talking, one plainly doesn't want to be there and whines for the entire time, every time, one plays defense so intensely that he has been known to slide tackle opponents on the court, two have some kind of learning disability, and two descend into anarchy immediately if not widely separated.  (There is some overlap here.)  A daunting bunch to handle as a solo coach, to say the least, but none of the team parents who occasionally help out were there today!  I ended up, in desperation, drafting a friend off the bleachers, who most graciously saved my bacon despite the fact that he

a) knew very well what he was getting into,
b) had to leave his visiting parents alone in the seats to do so, and
c) ended up coaching against his own daughter during the scrimmage.

That would be the definition of true friendship.

Then both of us moved to the other gym to watch our elder children play a tough game.  (His son and Thing One are on the same team.)  Those boys absolutely couldn't buy a basket today to save their collective lives--maybe 10% of their shots dropped, but they still won.  On one particularly memorable trip down the court, all five members of Thing One's team on the court at the time took a shot, and all five missed!  (It is a testament to their defensive skills that they got the four offensive rebounds in a row, however--probably how they ended up winning in the end.)  

Now I am home.  I am not going anywhere or doing anything more complicated or stressful than laundry, dishes and cooking for the rest of the day.  The morning was enough!