I am not a gymnast Mom

I stood in a semi-circle of women discussing our gymnasts. The meet was 45 minutes away and it had been a hairy morning. But we made it on time and that was all that was important.

The women stood discussing the gym our daughters attend and various other related subjects. I caught snippets of conversation between finding the kids toys to play with and ignoring their pleas for food. I was a little jealous of the other women’s 1.2 children.

At one point I interjected, “Now what happened?”

I got a “It all went down while you were on vacation.” I’m still not sure what happened.

I caught something about a “rotating door of coaches” all of which was news to me. But then I had to take a certain 2 year old to the bathroom. Upon my return, the gymnast Moms had moved on to watch the girls on their first event; the vault. I made it in time to see my daughter do her vault. It was beautiful. But I had forgotten my camera in the rush to get out the door and missed her score while quieting starving children.

I asked one of the other moms if they saw it and they told me, “She got a 9.1″ with only a slight tone of derision. I then took my starving children and ran to get them some food so I wouldn’t miss her next event.

As I sat there feeding my children, I realized that I don’t do the soccer mom thing very well. I don’t know any of the gossip. All I know is that my daughter is happy and her scores have improved and she likes her coaches. And I know that she cries if I suggest we cut back on her hours at the gym.

I am blissfully unaware.

I will never be a good football mom, or gymnast mom, or lacrosse mom. I think those require someone who can spend time watching their children practice and time knowing everything that goes on. I suppose you could say that is a downfall of having a large family. I don’t have that luxury. I have time to drop my children off at their practices and then go home and attend to whoever is left.

As the meet ended, the other moms had long since abandoned me and my brood. I can’t say I blame them, I would have abandoned them too if they weren’t mine. I watched for my sweet daughter and waved her over.

“Hey sweetie, you did amazing today.”

“Thanks mom. Did you survive?” I smiled to myself that she would be concerned at how I fared.

“Yes, we survived. Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, I really did. That bar was slippery though. That’s why I fell.” I had missed that part because the baby took off, but I said nothing.

“That’s ok, you still looked great.”

And we walked out the door, all 5 of us.