Try If You Must to Take the Esprit de Corps but You Can't Take The Moxie

There is always plenty of blame to go around anytime things don't go exactly as one had hoped, as one dreams to expect. There is also one thing no one should ever stand for and that is damaging the esteem of children in an effort to make one's self feel better for one's short comings, inabilities to produce and reach that one's level of personal expectation.

Friday was suppose to be a great day. In many ways it was. Princess A is home for Fall break. It was a half-day of school/work. I lunched out with my Princess A while M clocked a few hours in at work cranking out copies and D hung with her besties. Until...we headed to the high school for the football game--to see our Flyers remain undefeated--and that is when everything went emotionally wrong, that the days happenings were revealed with a big spill. A spill that needed a lot of mops to clean up with.

It seems a certain someone decided to reem on the girls for changes that were made just hours before. Changes that only fourteen of a group of hundred and eighty-four have to endure in an effort to boost scores. Comments made in the morning only in the face of two absent coaches. So, not only were there fourteen tender hearted hard working girls (who practice more than the other band members) riddled with hurt, you had two irritated coaches thinking "how dare someone" and a slue of pissed off parents who learned to bite tongue and rally the girls to rise up and prove wrong.

When the night was called early for band, in prep for the next day competition, at half time M was in tears and she had company. There is nothing that aches me as a parent more than when my girls hurt --physically or emotionally, when the hard work and dedication is squashed at the expense of elevating the ego of what I consider cowardly bully behavior. M cried till 11pm. No matter what Princess A or I said to make M see, understand or accept our words of reasoning the tears flowed. Know what I did? I punched in the code on the safe and yanked out that dam cell phone while King Ralph went for the phone charger and an emergency emotion booster. It took a wee bit of the edge off, a very wee bit. Then he sat on the edge of M's bed and rubbed her back till she slumbered.

Band was suppose to be the good ending to a hard week.

Then we woke at 5am, I bunned M's hair while she glossed up with blue eye shadow and apricot lip stick. To the Dome for BOA competition we went.

(There seriously needs to be rules implemented about how many early band calls you should have in one season. Two. Is one too many!)

To boost moral and spirit one of the Guard coaches wrote a nice story about geese as encouragement which inspires the essence of team spirit while the other spoke directly from the heart his words of can-do-go-get'm-spirit...then they did the best they could--considering.

No the kids didn't make BOA finals again this year. That's okay. Every year you can't be like Broken Arrow. Or even Oakville (as they recently have proved). Some years you just get to be the Flyers...that really truly is okay.

We look to the future, which is this coming Saturday..."we" includes the kids who perform and the parents who support. The support is for the ones who can, the ones who can't but do and the ones who try there damdest.

While M and a posy of band kids' goal this week is to rise above and to the occasion of GSL, I have a different agenda: to sleep, stop blowing my ever dripping nose, and to see sunshine in blue skies and feel warm air this weekend. Sitting on a fleece blanket placed upon an ice cold metal bleacher wrapped in my Nanook, clapping with gloved hands while sipping hot chocolate is never a goal for me this early in the Fall!

Tears are never to be a part of the occasion unless as a show of happiness and pride. Smiles ahead M, smiles ahead.