confessions of a soccer mom

This is a picture of Grant who doesn't play soccer but would like to. He was posing in someones shin guards and shoes. I'm pretty sure the shin guards are much more comfortable when worn backwards.

You know those obnoxious parents that totally get into their 5-year old's soccer game? They do crazy things like yell, "Get on D Tony" or "That's your ball Suzy." So does Tony know what D means? It used to disgust me when hearing these things. I don't know what happened, but one day I turned into one of those parents. It was the day when Katie, for the first time, became aggressive and actually ran up the entire field almost scoring a goal. I was out of my seat yelling and was so into it that I almost ran onto the field and scored the goal myself. I quickly realized that I was making a great fool of myself and tried to remain seated for the rest of the game. I wasn't able to sit still. I was clenching my fists and gritting my teeth any time some great play was made. Since then during every game I find myself yelling "run up to the ball" or "go, go, go." I'm a completely different person during soccer games. I'm not typically the noisiest person but suddenly I'm a very competitive, loud watcher. I've discovered that the only way to stifle this behavior is to talk to another mom and not watch the game. That causes a problem when Jordan says, "mom did you see me score that goal." "No," I say. "I can't watch and be reasonable at the same time." No, just kidding, I haven't actually been able to NOT watch a game but I am totally distracted while talking to another parent. The only thing I have going for me is the kids love for me to yell stuff at them as long as I keep it nice and encouraging.