It Has Begun

This is the time of year that my office fondly refers to as "busy season." My family refers to it as the time of year when "Daddy disappears." Luckily for my loving family, however, I am spending more quality time at home this year. That's been part of my plan since I made my move to the new firm. I think they are truly enjoying it. I've spent the past two days sitting either in my chair, sitting in the bedroom, or sitting at the dining table working. Every now and again, I get a question from the kids about something they or my loving wife needs, only to be answered with a "What? Huh? Daddy's kind of busy here, go ask Mom." "We already did - she told us to ask you." "What? Huh? Daddy's kind of busy here, have you talked to your Mom?" SIGH walks away! But, I'm home - that's the most important part, right? As I really wasn't sure that I would have enough to do this "busy season," I also made the decision to be the head coach of my eldest's soccer team. Now, I've spent the past 6 years coaching from the sidelines, but not once stepped foot in a leadership role on the pitch. Wish me luck. This week, I've already spent 4 hours in class learning the basics of teaching soccer to little kids. Yes, you heard me, little kids. The course I was required to attended was geared toward 5 and 6 year olds, since they expect that once somebody starts, they will grow with their team. As I come into the world with 11 year olds, this ought to be interesting. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to let these boys down. They are probably going to wish that they didn't even sign up this season, or at least they didn't draw the short straw to get me as Coach. Anyway, this is a brand new team, with kids that were in the soccer pool and parents that are unknown to me. Well, unknown, that is, until I sent out a mass email to all of my players' parents to find out if practice timing and dates would work and what were the sizes of jerseys needed, etc. You know the basics. . . HUH - what was I thinking? What I opened myself up to was a barrage of information from these parents letting me know that I better not let them down, that their kid was the next World Cup MVP, that their kid needed an adult XL jersey because they were really tall for their age (sure, I bet they're really wide for their age, too), that they won't practice on Sundays, that their kid was on a select team but didn't sign up this year because of the travel and they hope they made a good decision and aren't going to be on a losing team this year, and that while they all had more opinions than Jelly Belly has flavors, they had no plans to assist in coaching. So, it has begun. My busy season. My kids' Daddy disappearance act. My life as a soccer coach. Shouldn't be too stressful, I'm sure I'll keep my cool throughout it all. No worries.