{"id":1078,"date":"2014-11-20T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2014-11-27T20:57:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T20:57:38","slug":"1078","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/?p=1078","title":{"rendered":"Cricket Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_2265\"<\/a>I can\u2019t tell you what an amazing service I did for my community recently. Ok, I can\u2014I took one for the team.<\/p>\n

This year, for the first time, both of my boys are playing cricket. It\u2019s just Milo cricket which means that, instead of playing actual cricket, they\u2019re just learning the skills they\u2019re going to need to play the real game in a couple of years.<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t really understand cricket. I mean, I get the basics\u2014one guy throws the ball, the other guy hits it and runs. Beyond that, it gets confusing. For one thing, two different guys are running back and forth between the stumps at the same time, not just the guy batting.<\/p>\n

Also, everyone on both teams is wearing white and if it\u2019s a little chilly, the umpire will wear the bowler\u2019s jacket tied around his waist like they\u2019re both in junior high school and dating each other. Which is just weird.<\/p>\n

(If it isn\u2019t clear, the bowler is the guy throwing the ball. No, he\u2019s not bowling in the ten-pin sense, but he\u2019s also not pitching and\u2014if I\u2019m to believe All Australian Men\u2014he\u2019s also not technically \u201cthrowing\u201d. Go figure.)<\/p>\n

But even though I don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d cricket, I don\u2019t mind if my boys want to play it, mainly because A) it\u2019s a summer sport, which means I don\u2019t have to sit out in the freezing rain all winter like I would if they were into football, and B) even though the bowler\u2019s objective is to hit the batsman with the ball, cricket isn\u2019t technically a contact sport.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen enough ten year olds carried off the football field unconscious and bleeding (through freezing rain) for me to be happy if my boys NEVER want to play football.<\/p>\n

So, cricket it is and a couple of weeks ago was the first session of the season. Being prepared, I took along a lawn chair where I had planned to sit and drink coffee, browsing Facebookland on my phone and occasionally waving to the kids. Not a bad way to spend an hour on a sunny Saturday morning, really.<\/p>\n

Except for that it was not to be.<\/p>\n

To kick off the session, the coaches asked all the kids to assemble and instructed the parents to \u201ccome close\u201d so we could hear a few announcements. All necessary business managed, I had expected to go and set up shop in my lawn chair\u2014only when the coach carried on with the children, all of the other parents stayed huddled in a loose circle, watching with unnecessarily rapt attention (I thought) to their kids tossing tennis balls into the air and trying to catch them.<\/p>\n

Still, I didn\u2019t mind too much. I\u2019d found a friend, another mom named Kelly I haven\u2019t seen since my boys stopped going to karate a year ago. Kelly is a truly hilarious person\u2014we used to get shushed by the sensei for laughing too loudly outside the door of the dojo\u2014so I was happy to yuk it up with her while the kids did their thing.<\/p>\n

But while I have no objection to taking the kids to sports and even paying attention to them doing it, I had to take issue when the coach told the parents to come play a game. I couldn\u2019t really say no, but seriously? I\u2019d already put my phone in my pocket, I was already standing up and actually WATCHING the proceedings. Did I really, actually need to play a game, too? I thought perhaps not, but there was nothing for it but to join in.<\/p>\n

The object of the game was for the parents to stand in the middle of the field and try to tag the kids as they all ran from one side of the field to the other. Some of these kids are as young as four, so when they started running, I was able to do some damage just standing in one spot. Not so bad, I thought.<\/p>\n

Then the coach announced we should switch places so that the kids would do the tagging and the parents run.<\/p>\n

Of course, having planned to spend my morning entertaining myself with cat videos and Buzzfeed lists, I\u2019d grabbed the first pair of shoes I could find when we were rushing out the door that morning, a pair of fleeced lined Crocs (because gosh darn it, Crocs weren\u2019t ugly enough already, let\u2019s add a fleece lining\u2014extra unattractive, but also extra comfy.)<\/p>\n

Well, my boys didn\u2019t have the heart to tag me and I wasn\u2019t about to let somebody else\u2019s kid peg me with a tennis ball, so when the coach blew the whistle, I ran, dodging a little runt of a boy not quite as tall as my waist.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when it happened.<\/p>\n

It had rained the night before so the grass was wet and Crocs aren\u2019t made for running and I\u2019m basically a completely uncoordinated idiot\u2014not capable of just standing there quietly and blending in\u2014so instead of gracefully darting around the kid, my feet came out from under me.<\/p>\n

Sideways.<\/p>\n

And I couldn\u2019t just fall straight down and be done with it. No, I had to fall ON MY FACE in a move that ended up with me ROLLING OVER my own shoulder and into the wet grass. Right about then, an unsuspecting father\u2014intent on the game\u2014came barreling up behind me, just in time for me to take him out at the knees.<\/p>\n

We ended up in a wet, grassy heap, this poor father horrified at being on top of me, me laughing and my kids pretending like they didn\u2019t have a mother.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that the other dad was so embarrassed that he wouldn\u2019t make eye contact for the rest of the morning. Also, my kids were horrified and I’ve made a lasting impression on the coach that isn’t likely to fade over time.<\/p>\n

The good news, though, is that since then, the coach hasn\u2019t asked the parents to play any more games, which means that I can now count on spending my Saturday morning in my chair with my coffee and my Facebook.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d call that a win, wouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t tell you what an amazing service I did for my community recently. Ok, I can\u2014I took one for the team. This year, for the first time, both of my boys are playing cricket. It\u2019s just Milo cricket which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurafulton.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}