...to have a peaceful evening at soccer

...but I didn't.

Let's just call a spade a space and shout out that Monday's are pretty stressful around here.

• I work.
• The kids have school.
• The little girls don't nap.
• We have soccer.  

I tried to improve the experience from last week by trying to be better prepared.

Which meant that last night I:

• set out each child's soccer outfit
• filled all of the water bottles
• made dinner (as I write this in hindsight...perhaps I should have served beef?)
• set aside snacks for the kids for our two-hour-soccer-shift
• made sure our soccer bag was still stocked (blankets, tissues, hair ties, and sweatshirts)

The evening started off as a great night at soccer.  Abbey had her first game, kicked the ball several times on the field, and even ran toward the correct goal each time she had the ball!

Audrey played nicely with her friend Nina.

The big kids worked hard at their practices.

And the best part of all was that Mark was able to meet us at the fields to watch the kids play.

Because Mark was able to join us I was able to head home a bit early with the little girls to get their evening routine started...Herein lies the problem.

Oh. My.

Drama.

Abbey wanted to stay.

She wanted to stay and play with her buddy Luke.  You know, the little guy she plays with for several hours most every day!

And she started screaming.  She screamed the entire walk to the car.

She collapsed in a heap to the ground at least six different times.

Of course there were people around.  

Lots of people around.

I felt like it took us twenty minutes to walk back to the van since she kept collapsing to the ground.  It probably didn't help that I spent most of our trek to the van trying to catch her antics on film.  

The problem was that each time she realized I was still taping her she would scream a little louder or collapse to the ground a little harder.

I probably should have picked her up and carried her to the van.

But I have to record this stuff.  This way, when they are teenagers and are embarrassed by my behavior around their friends, I can bust out these videos to show them they had it coming! 

Tit-for-tat.

I digress.

In this particular clip Abbey says she would like a snack.  As if proclaiming her hunger to all of the bystanders in a five-mile-radius warrants a cheese stick?

I found this particular clip fascinating mostly because of Audrey's response to Abbey's tantrum.  Audrey's response is nearly identical to Abbey's distraught last week.

A paid actress couldn't have performed this scene any better.

And for the record...I have never left, even one of my children, anywhere.