...the one where I explain how I became ONE of them...

So, before we last spoke, MomCat was explaining to you how difficult her son's tackle football season had been for the whole family, but also how in many ways she'd seen her son toughen up and mature from the experience. And, while she still didn't feel like she meshed completely with the overly-intense football moms on his squad, she was starting to feel a little more "with it" at least.

Well, there's nothing like witnessing disgusting sportsmanship and sitting two feet from the most ridiculous parents/fans of a pee-wee football team, to make a girl bond with her football moms. Through the course of one game, I learned that really things could be much worse...and definitely much more intense.

It was a typically game scenario--my husband does the books for the team and assists the coach during games. Both my son and he have to be there 45 minutes before each game to "warm up" and do all that he-man-testosterone kind of football bonding.

This translates into me being left to entertain my antsy 4-year-old, who hates football games more than anything, for about three hours straight. A few weeks ago, I learned something that seems to help kill the time--we dump and run until the game starts. So, after dropping my son and husband off, we took off for a lovely football-free feast at a nearby sandwich shop. Large sale signs then pulled us to a favorite clothing store for browsing. We had the time, I told myself.

After finding tons of great deals for my daughter and son, we left and it dawned on me that, um, the game started like 5 minutes before that. Nice...sigh...

Still hoping that they'd been delayed, we arrived only to find we'd almost missed the entire first quarter. Of course, I felt like a boob--like someone had stapled a note card to my head that said, "Hello? Bad football mom here!" I tucked my tail between my legs and crept into the stands trying as not to raise attention to myself. Guilt-ridden, I decided not to plant myself in the middle of all the good football moms, for fear of having to explain myself. Instead, I'd try to sit to the edge, and somewhat in the middle of both sides of fans.

That's when I noticed one of the friendlier football moms, motioning to me urgently to come and sit closer to her. Wow! I thought. How nice! Have I finally made a football mom friend?

"You don't want to sit there. BELIEVE me." She said somewhat angrily when I sat behind her.

Puzzled, I sat down and turned my focus to the game. It didn't take more than 30 seconds for me to realize what she was talking about.

"RIP HIS HEAD OFF! RIP HIS HEAD OFF!" An angry opposing fan screamed, in reference to our quarterback.

Well, my goodness, I thought. That sounds a little intense!

"HURT HIM! HURT HIM GOOD!" She screamed again as she stood up and pointed towards our player, apparently directing her son (or the entire team) feverishly.

I looked around at our team's football moms. Each had their shoulders up, making their trying-to-look-casual-in-a-team-T-yet-remaining-overly-made-up-demeanor much stiffer.

"Do you see why I motioned for you to sit here? You should have SEEN what went on during the first quarter," the friendly mom shared with me. "I'm looking them up RIGHT NOW!" And, with that, she frisked out her crackberry and began frantically typing.

Soon after, a very large and definitely out-of-shape man began running in the front of our teams fans whenever the players on the field moved in that direction. As he ran and scream near-profanities, our entire stands shook in his wake.

"KILL THEM! HIT THEM HARD!" He angrily shouted.

"I found it! I found it!" The angry crackberry mom announced as she turned to tell every fan on our side the name of the school we were playing. And, the scary screaming woman from the other side shouted even more.

It went on like this, and seemed to get even worse to me, although the football moms insisted that it was better than it had been that first quarter. The opposing fan display was so bad, in fact, that the screaming woman kept right on screaming her support even during half-time when there were no players on the field.

"Does she know that they aren't playing right now" I asked friendly football/crackberry mom.

"Apparently, NOT! I think this must be a blue-collar type of team or something," she cracked.

The game was very close and, while our team was actually much better than this team, their players and coaches poor sportsmanship and rough play seemed to match their scary fans. Their players would throw off their helmets when a call went against them and stop around like angry two-year-olds. My son swears he even saw a player run by and slap at one of our team's coaches. The refs, eventually just gave up and started calling ridiculous calls in the scary team's favor. Perhaps they feared the consequences if not. My husband later told me their coach didn't shake the other coach's hands at the end of the game.

I made a discreet phone call to my husband in the middle of the game.

"Look, I know you are busy," I quietly said. "But I am going to need for you to watch for us after the game if we win. I'm a little frightened that we won't make it to the car."

And on and on it went, as we enduring the screaming woman and the running fat man and the horrible demands they were spewing out of their mouths to their players.

When the game was neck-and-neck and with only minutes left, our football moms had really had enough. They began stopping their feat loudly, shaking the stands in one big suburban mom show of unity and support. Hoop earrings swayed and padded football chairs rocked as a very wholesome-looking Grandmother screamed out and glared at the opposing fans,

"STICK IT TO 'EM, JOHNNY!"

Wow, I didn't see that one coming, I thought.
The buzzer sounded and unfortunately our team lost by one touchdown. But, the friendly, crackberry football mom was not going to let their fans get the last word in if she could help it.

"I'm SORRY!" She screamed as she stood up and looked up at the obnoxious fan next to us. "I wasn't AWARE that this was the SUPER BOWL!" And, with that, she grabbed her pee-wee football paraphernalia and stormed out of the stands.

When it was all said and done, I felt like I'd sort of bonded with these football moms with whom I'd previously felt no connection. Like we'd united from the trauma of it all. That, and I learned something very important that game--apparently, pony-tailed, hat-wearing football moms with too much makeup and jewelry on are NOT be trifled with...

Hypocrisy, coming from the Queen of Maternal Guilt

This article has me rethinking what it means to be a good mother. Perhaps I've been wrong to lay all that maternal guilt on myself every time I see a problem or my child suffers in anyway.

What do you think?

Top 5 Reasons This MomCat is M.I.A.

So, for those of you who haven't completely taken me off your list of blogs to read after my fluffy and meaningless lists of two weeks ago--followed up by an entire week without posting, here's my top five excuses (uh, I mean reasons) for not posting:

1. The hissy cat ate my blog post...then threw it up with about five hairballs on my already cat-ruined carpet. Damn senior citizen kitty!

2. My kids are in complete, drive-MomCat-crazy-this-summer mode. And, it is working...

3. I drowned in the flood of urine that is my daughter's potty accidents...it was a horrible (and smelly) way to go.

4. I won't even mention the other type of accidents from my wee girl that I've had to clean up. Let's just say sometimes princess panties just need to go to that garbage can in the sky because Mommy can only clean up so much ca-ca in one week.

5. I lost 50 pounds, got a much needed tummy tuck, and was crowned the winner of America's Next Top Model: the Mommy Edition. Next stop, the White House.

Seriously, though folks. I have been to potty-training hell and back again. And, knock on wood, we're starting to see a light. For awhile there though, I could be found skirting around my suburbs in an unrecognizable get-up of dark sunglasses, unwashed hair shellacked into a George Washington-like ponytail, a stained t-shirt, and large black wading boots. Oh, and I think there were pants on, but I can't be held to that. (grin)

The checker at the grocery store did not know why I continued to ask her if she was sure she didn't need to go poo-poo in the potty, but it just came out of me uncontrollably, much like my daughter's urine seems to this week. How much pee can be contained ONE petite three-year-old, I ask you???

Thankfully, she IS getting better. And, my fairly new washer and dryer are thankful for that too. But, no amount of toy bribery can convince her to let loose with the poo in the potty, but at least a majority of the time she's making it with the liquid stuff. And, for five days of focus, that's not too bad, I don't think. (Please, don't regal me here with stories of your 15-month-old's potty training excellence, I don't think I could handle it right now.)

Excuse me, I'm off for another potty and laundry cycle run. Hopefully, by NEXT Saturday I can post of way more intellectually stimulating things, and maybe get a shower in-between camping out in my bathroom with toddler books, a sticker chart and enough M&Ms to make any under three year old O.D. on candy.


Oh, and guess what? ALL next week, we get to drive my son downtown to and from his museum camp, which takes about 30 to 45 minutes without traffic. And, all I can think is...how many car accidents will it take to get to the center of MomCat's insanity? Let's find out....ah-one...ah-two....

How You Know You've Entered the Gates of Mommy Hell...

I despise kids haircutting chains. And, yet, I find myself there regularly with my children gritting my teeth and just hoping to get it over with quickly.

Until this past year, when my husband discovered a tiny little shop near our home where two Asian sisters cut hair for ultra-cheap (under $10, people!) They are sweet ladies trying to make their business a success and so I often bring the kids there. I have never had to wait more than 10 minutes and there is only two of them with no receptionist.

Today, if I could have telepathically transported myself and my children to their small salon, I most certainly would have done it. Because, today, I was stuck in pure Mommy hell.

When we walked in the "chain," it seemed a little crowded, but not ridiculously so. There were three ladies doing hair, and it seemed things were moving. I added my kids names to the list and made mental plans of the errands we would run afterwards, since my husband was called into to work all day. It looked like there were just 3 names ahead of us so I planned for a 15-20 minute wait, tops.

An hour-and-a-half later, we finally left. My blood sugar was near my ankles and I had a daze to my stare that only comes from spending too much time listening to little girls cry about getting their hair cut, overly-particular mothers pointing out each hair the stylist missed, and kids arguing over the Thomas the train set.

My advice for anyone who sets foot in one of these establishments is this--don't trust the list. As I learned, people who called in to make an appointment, even if they had called in 45 minutes AFTER I signed the list, were put ahead of us because they had an appointment. I deduced after the fact that I could have walked outside, called from my cell phone and we probably would have gotten in for our haircut 30 minutes earlier. Ridiculous!

At one point, I began mentally willing a small boy who was ahead of us in line to wet his pants. His mother kept asking him to go, and the child obviously had little-boy-bathroom-syndrome. He was not willing to leave the Legos for even a second to pee-pee, no matter what. And, I thought....hmmm...if he pees all over this floor, his mother will be mortified and ticked-off. Chances are, she wouldn't stick around with him in urine-soaked pants. And, hmm...then we'd move up a place in line.

That's when I knew I'd been there too long, my friends. My other clue was when my son actually grew tired of playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skate and started watching Dora with his sister.

The kids finally got in after about an hour and 15 minutes and got their cuts. We all left in bad moods that were not made better by a trip to a funky new car wash on the way home. Damn those haircutting chains!

No $6 off coupon will lure me in again, I tell you! It is just SO NOT WORTH IT.