I Need To Clone Myself

Two weeks ago Thursday, I was driving Thing Two home from soccer practice when my cell phone started pinging nonstop.  When I was able to check it, I saw that I had about twelve texts in a row from my friend Rose, who was at the kids' school watching the Star Wars tournament in which Thing One's team was playing.  (Don't ask me what it is...I still don't have all the rules straight but it is something like Guard the Castle crossed with dodgeball.)  The tourney was a charity fundraiser organized by the middle school student council and a good dozen or so teams were signed up to play, including one primarily composed of Thing One's posse of 8th grade buddies.

Rose's texts got progressively shorter and more excited as they went along, starting with one asking where I was and moving on to tell me that Thing One's team had made the final and later that he was the last man standing on his team against three opponents.  The last couple of texts informed me that he had gotten the last man out on the other team with three seconds to spare to win the tourney for his team (one text was entirely exclamation points!) and the grand finale was a picture of a dogpile of all seven boys on the team on the gym floor with a note from Rose that Thing One was on the bottom of the pile.  

In a very deja vu-like echo of that evening, tonight my phone blew up yet again on my way home from a soccer practice, this time Petunia's.  My friend Susan was breathlessly updating me on the last ten minutes or so of our joint sons' semifinal rec basketball game.  (Thing One again.)  They had come from way behind against arguably a much better opponent to win by 7 and there was absolute pandemonium on the court by the end!  Once again, I was very sad to have missed it, but at least my husband was at both events. Sometimes the logistics of  'divide and conquer' just stink.  

The basketball team's story is a particularly good one.  It's mostly the same group of boys as were on the Star Wars team, not one of them a 'real' basketball player.  There are two very good soccer players and a cross-country runner in the group, but that's about it.  Thing One is the tallest kid on the team at 5'9", too...they aren't exactly a physically imposing group.  Their coach is Susan's older son, a high school senior who can't even officially *be* the coach of a team since he isn't 18 yet!  (The father of one of the other boys attended all the practices and games since the presence of an adult was required by the league, but that dad would be the first one to tell you that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual coaching.)  Very special to see this group having so much success even though I couldn't actually see it myself either time.