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Sports

The Sporting Mom

Juggling children and their sports is no easy task.

It’s 5 a.m. on Saturday. The world is dark, and so is my brain. I shuffle through my house and up to my 7-year-old son’s room to wake him. Am I crazy? Well, not completely. Today, I’m a hockey mom.

On any given day, I can be found hauling around bags of equipment: hockey, baseball, basketball, softball, soccer or gymnastics. Today, my son has a hockey tournament that is 33 miles away. He has multiple games that are 12 hours apart, and that’s just today. This is a three-day tournament.

This is a typical Saturday for me.

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We all know that being a parent is more than a full-time job, but do we ever stop to think about how much effort goes into being a sports parent? There's putting miles on the car, to getting all the athletic equipment together, the cost of playing. And don’t even get me started on the unhealthy meals on the road.

How about homework time versus sports time? Where do we draw the line? My kids are still elementary age, and I’m already struggling with a balance. I can’t imagine what high school will be like.

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Just before this weekend started, I vowed to make healthier food choices for my family during all of our time at the rink and on the road. I can’t even begin to count how many nights my family has eaten concession-stand food in place of a decent meal. Drive-through restaurant food isn’t much better. Does every family succumb to the ease of these temptations, or is it just me? I try to feed my kids before we leave the house, but even when I do, it never fails, they are all “starving” when we get wherever we are going. The pretzels, nachos, hot dogs, etc. are all calling their names.

After my personal vow, I’m happy to report that all weekend, my clan steered away from the concession stand, and only one drive-through stop was made and that was for my son (who was playing) to grab a chicken sandwich before heading straight to church from his third game of the weekend.

One weekend of good choices certainly won’t create a lifestyle change, but it’s a start. Who knows, maybe next time I’ll be persuaded to throw some apples or veggie sticks in my car for the kids to snack on.

And, I’m happy to report that after clocking over nine hours of driving to sporting events and four hockey games, my 7-year-old's team won the championship game of his tournament.

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