May. The month of chaos.

So this week has been a bit on the crazy side.  We have had soccer tournaments going on for two of our munchkins and games out of town with the oldest tater tot.  I'm not sure the oldest, who is 16, would appreciate being called a tater tot?  I got on here the other day to blog and LO!  Blogger was "not available at this time for mechanical issues."  So.  We have been running all week long.  We are also heading into our final week of ballet for Soph, as she will be in her spring concert this next weekend.  Her ballet company is presenting Cinderella.  It will be a stellar show, as they also dance modern, tap, and jazz.  In nine years I have yet to watch a spring concert that made me think I had just lost 2.5 hours of my life that I'll never get back!  It has been a joy to be a part of such a wonderful company of dance.

On Friday Chloe had her first tournament game.  When we showed up I thought for sure we were going to get shellacked.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think we have the worst team ever.  It is just that we were playing a team that beat us last fall, and also this spring in our regular season play.  I don't think the parents were showing up with high expectations.  High hopes, but not expectations.

We scored the first goal.  It was a bit of a shocker.  The funny thing was that from the start, from the moment the whistle blew from the referee's mouth, the other teams parents were going full throttle. 

Y'all.  I didn't know this, but apparently we were at the World Cup, a la junior mint style.  Now maybe I just happened to be in the "other team" seating area, but the folks on my end were, to say the least, zealous. 

News flash about me: I'm usually afraid to sit by someone that is yelling not so nice things, or cutthroat things, or cutting on the ref.  It makes me break out in a sweat and I get embarrassed.  I don't know why.  I think I'm afraid I'm going to get into trouble.  I mean, seriously, who yells at the ref.?  He has the power to affect the game with his calls.  Hopefully they have rubber skin, but I've seen some that don't.  I actually was at a game where the ref. called the game because a few of our dads were OVER. THE. TOP.  I had to come out from under the rock I had sought refuge under.

OK, so back to our game on Friday.  We had hoped that our girls would be able to score, and if they won, well that would be even better!  Well, it was on.  We scored first so the yelling ante went up from their side.

I was giggling with one of our moms about "their" yelling...  That should have been my first clue that something, somewhere along the way, was going to go WAY south with my mouth.  I never wanted to be "one of those kind of parents". 

The other teams' parents went ballistic when their girls would kick the ball.  I would do an inward eyeball roll.  You know I'm just keeping it real here.  Next thing you know, they had five goals and we were still on our one.  It was looking ugly for us. 

Somewhere, somehow, we managed to come back with three more goals to make it four to five!  Oh MY!  The cheering was getting a bit more spirited on both sides.  Still, not obnoxious on our side. 

We had 10 seconds left in the whole game and one of our girls passed with a cross to another girl and our girl shot it in!    It was such a hard fought game and I might have jumped up and yelled out a cheer.  Maybe.

At this point we go into overtime.  There was five minutes of play and whoever came out with the most goals was the winner.  Now we were feeling it!

We scored!  Everyone was cheering, the tension was palpable.  Your could tell that some of the parents from the other side were all of a sudden not so thrilled with the ref.  He was missing calls, making up his own rules, blah blah blah...  Funny how earlier in the game he was great ref, and OH we love this ref, and he is so nice...  I could hear them talking amongst themselves.

Made me chuckle.  I mean, he is a professor at our local OSU campus, he is a ref for all ages, he refs for adult/college teams.  The guy is very knowledgeable and he didn't spend the entire game blowing his whistle stopping the game.  He was really very fair the whole time.  Sometimes getting a ref is like the proverbial box of chocolates.

Well, the other team squeaked in a goal.  If we ended the five minutes with a tie then it was going to go into penalty kicks.

Do you see the cutie in the red socks with polka dots?  That is Chloe's friend and she has overcome some major obstacles in life.  Ashley had her hips out of socket from birth and it wasn't caught until she was two and a half-ish.  She had to have major surgery and was in a body cast for a long while.  If you have children you can imagine how difficult this would be.  Car travel, bathing, itchy skin, the list goes on.  But Ashley is a mover and shaker!  There is not a blade of grass growing under her feet!  She had to go through physical therapy and learn how to walk again.  She has been an over comer!

Well, Ashley was in the right spot at the right time and she had a little break away and boy did she break away!  The cheers were going up for her.  GO ASHLEY, GO!!  Her Grandma had Ashley's mom on the phone because her momma had two other soccer games to be at with two of their other kids.  Grandma is trying to give a blow by blow account of what is going on.  Then it happened!  TWO SECONDS left in the game and Ashley shot it in! 

OK.  I jumped up and screamed.  I screamed with joy for Ashley.  I yelled with excitement for our girls and how they had rallied.  I was so excited for them because they had lost two other times to this team - and not by a little bit either.  You guys, after it happened, I kind of looked around because I was sort of embarrassed of myself for that scream that shot right out of my mouth!  My kids have been on the receiving end of having the other team score so high that it is very telling of the coach's character.  If it was up to me, you know, there would be pixie dust and rainbows all the time!  I suppose this was just a well fought game and our girls rallied and won.  No gloating, just excited cheering.

As the ref came over to explain something to the parents about a particular play, the parents on the other team started yelling at him and telling him he had no clue what the rules were.  Really?  I thought I heard Daniel Powter's song in the background, "so ya had a bad day..."

With that first win of the tournament round under our belt, we launched ahead to spending Saturday, and today with more games.  More pics to come.  Try not to loose sleep while you wait!