My son’s first Saturday morning hockey practice did not go according to plan. I bet Sydney Crosby’s mother never had a morning like this.
As tag-team parents, the Carpenter and I split Saturdays between the children. I head off with our daughter, while the Carpenter is hockey dad. He has the muscle required to tie skates so ankles don’t turn in. He knows how to tape sticks and gear. The Carpenter can do it all. I cannot.
So, when a work issue stymied his first hockey practice duty, I don’t know who was more upset, him for missing it or me for realizing I had to manage it. Murphy’s Law kicked in early that day. First, our kitten escaped and decided this was the morning she would like to try climbing a tree in a neighbour’s yard. Both kids were bawling while I tried a rescue, in a pink fuzzy bathrobe. One cat rescued. Check.
Heading home, I noticed my boy’s neck guard had been left on the laundry line, soaking wet from the previous nights’ rain. Grabbed that, tossed it in the dryer. Ten minutes until departure. That was just the beginning.
An otherwise normal hockey morning went awry as one thing after another seemed to disappear. The kids could feel my tension and soon, we were squabbling about everything from toothpaste to jockstraps.
In a moment of madness, I ran up to the bathroom, portable phone in hand, and locked the door behind me. I phoned the Carpenter at work. He was laughing before I even said hello. He had predicted this drama.
He knew me too well, and knew that everything that could go wrong would go wrong for me on this particular morning. He laughed even harder when I put the phone to the toilet bowl and flushed, saying: “Hear this? This is our marriage if you ever leave me on hockey duty again.” Now he was hysterical. So was his crew, who apparently were also waiting for my frantic call. I am so predictable.
Chided, but not broken, I instructed my son to load his gear into the back of my station wagon. I meant, “backseat.” My hatchback hasn’t worked in months. My son forgot. He slumped his three thousand pound hockey bag over the seat into a trunk that does not open.
At the arena, the reality of the lodged hockey bag settled in panic. We spent fifteen minutes negotiating the difficult manoeuvering of the gear over the back seat. It was a spectacle for onlookers that included making the smallest child climb over the seat to push the hockey gear from behind, while my other child and I tried to pull it free. It landed with a thud. Together we squeezed it out the side door. Frustrated and red faced, the three of us headed to the arena, fuming in silence. Then my son turned ghostly white and said, “I forgot my stick.” Daddy would never have forgotten the stick.
Off I went, breaking more than a few traffic infractions to retrieve that stick. That’s when a black cat crossed my path. It was slow and apparently not a hockey fan. It stopped me in my tracks. My parental ineptitude was clearly not this feline’s problem. But was it a sign of things to come?
Nope. I arrived with minutes to spare. I got to play the hero for once. Score one for the hockey mom.