Soccer, a Test of Parenting

The Little Man had his first grading/training session for his soccer club on Sunday.  He is playing soccer with two pre-school friends that have gone off to other schools.  They are very excited to see each other twice a week for soccer.

The Little Man in Goal

It was quite a day.

As first timers, the under sixes, get a ball, a drink bottle and shin pads as part of their registration.  I then forked out for shorts, socks, a training shirt and a polar fleece pull over.  Expensive this organised sport thing, isn't it?

The actually training session is run by Kickstart and was well managed and the kids had a lot of fun.  The Little Man was exhausted by the time his team got to the last station and pretty much just sat it out.  Seeing this my Mummy instinct kicked in and I planned to get us into the car and home ASAP to avoid tired issues.

The Workaholic had different plans.

While the Little Man was training, he had been kicking a ball around with the Munchkin, for an entire hour.  It is pretty safe to say that the Munchkin was also exhausted.

Anyway, instead of following my lead and heading directly for the car, the Workaholic decides to get into the sausage line and then the soft drink line, all the while the Little Man has started emotionally collapsing.  He cried because they had to line up, he cried because his sausage was not straight, he cried be3cause the Workaholic did not get sauce on his sausage, he basically was so tired he was no longer in control of his emotions.

When he decided not to listen and got into the first line, I decided that I would take the Munchkin to the car.  He then decided to start screaming, like only a two year old can.  My gut said, "get him to the car", the Workaholic made me stay with him and the bawling five year old.  I was fuming.

By the time we left for the car, the Munchkin was out of control and I had to carry him kicking and screaming the 800 metres to the car.  The Little Man was crying to be carried by Dad because he was too tired to walk and I was still silently fuming.

Once in the car, I was still quiet.  Somehow I managed to control my temper even with the screaming and tears in the back seat.  I lost it though, when the Workaholic decided to jump out of the car while I was doing a three point turn.  I drove away.  I left him 5km from home in an area without public transport.  He walked home.

I am now worried that this has set the mood for soccer for us in the House of O.

The Workaholic came home and admitted to me that he was being juvenile getting out of the car (duh) and that he really should defer to me when it comes to these parenting situations because I am the full time parent (duh again).

Does your part time parent get you into these awful situations?