I embarrass myself. I embarrass my husband and I’m sure if my son understood the emotion of embarrassment, I would embarrass him as well. It’s not intentional, but it just happens. Almost like losing my patience isn’t intentional…it just happens, but stand by for a moment as I pat myself on the back after last night.

Ugh, groan, reaching… with… my… left… hand… while… typing… with… my… right, eek, oh, there we go. A good pat on the back. Now, back to full speed typing as I explain why I’m giving myself a pat on the back.

Before we go any further, I should preface this blog post with the following statement: I am a competitive person by nature. I compete against others who are better than me and others who are worse than me. I compete with myself. I compete with the opposite sex. The only person, or type of person, I don’t compete with is a child. I’m a realist and I think that would be doubly embarrassing on all fronts as most children can beat me (even mentally). SMH.

Davey’s first soccer game, I realized that I came off as a bit too pushy, maybe a bit too competitive. I was the only parent, not mom, but parent, who was yelling (yes, yelling) at her son to kick the ball, to get into the game, to do something! When I say “yelling” I don’t mean that I was berating Davey, kicking him around, or mentally brow beating him. My yelling consisted more of, “come on, Davey! You can do it. Just kick the ball. No, don’t kick it that way. Go get the ball. Don’t just stand there.”

I can only imagine what the other parents thought of me. I know what my own parents thought of me. They were there at the game to watch and were quick to put me in my place. “It’s just a game,” they said. “He’s only two,” they remarked. And they’re right. What do we, or I, get out of Davey winning a soccer game at the age of two? NOTHING! So, I decided to attempt to “86” my competitiveness for his next game, which was last night.

Now, here’s why I’m patting myself on the back. Even though my child sat down in the middle of the field while others kicked the ball around him. I didn’t yell. I sat in my chair and took pictures. When Davey wanted to run onto the other field to play. I didn’t yell, although I did hide my face in embarrassment. When he refused to “share” with others, I just rolled right along with the flow. I tried my best to mimic the behavior of the other moms and parents by just sitting back and enjoying the comical entertainment known as 2 & 3 year old co-ed soccer.

I don’t want to be that mom and I’m working hard to change my perspective. So what if he Davey wants to run away onto the other fields? He’s two!!!!!! His behavior in that respect is not indicative of my parenting abilities, which has been my true worry. He’s two!!!!!! He’s a boy. He’s going to run and explore.

We didn’t win the game last night, but who cares! And Davey’s behavior seemed to rub off on another little boy, but who cares! The thing I should be and am most concerned with is did my child have fun? YES! He’s a happy boy, a sweet boy, an intelligent boy, and a loving boy. Once again allow me to pat myself on the back.