Cheerleading Again

I have come to the realization that this whole cheerleading thing is going to totally screw up my free weekends until the football season is over. I first came to that realization on Thursday night, when the The Ex called. He had volunteered to run the concession stand for this horribly managed and organized youth association. I can't fault him for that, because he's done food service for most of his career and I know that what he will bring to the concession stand will probably be much better than what they've had before. He will probably also bring his asshole personality, but that's cool, because I won't be at the concession stand. So he calls on Thursday night, right as I'm trying to run back and forth between watering my topsoil in the pitch black during Big Brother commercials and then run back inside to watch Big Brother. He tells me that he has to be at the concession stand at 7:30 on Saturday morning (this morning) and he'll need to drop the kids off at my house around 7:00 am, or otherwise the children will have to be at the football field with him fully outfitted with nothing to do for an hour and a half.

I was silent for a moment when I heard this, and I thought to myself, I'm getting fucked here. I wanted to tell him, "Nope, you're going to have to make other arrangements, because at precisely 7:14:58 am, I plan on being in an exceptionally compromising position and the children can't come over. Sorry."  I really, really, really wanted to say this. But then, the children would get screwed. And for real, I didn't have any plans of that type, but it would be fun to say that to him, especially since that's all he thinks I'm doing anyway. I decided not to be a complete asshole and insist he make other arrangements, because for once, this isn't about me enforcing boundaries. This is about my children not being stuck at some football field for the entire morning in full cheerleading gear, which would mean they would have had to have gotten up at about 5:30 in the morning and their hair would still look fucked up because he can't do hair.

I told him to bring the children over at 7:00, I'll have their uniforms and I'll just get them ready and bring them to the field at the appointed time that I have to show up for my coaching bit. And then we had a pleasant conversation that consisted of cursing the organization of this freaking youth association. I actually think this might be the first conversation we've had since that night I told him I wanted a divorce that we've been unified in flinging blame and curses at someone other than each other. It was a strangely mature turn of events for me, almost like he and I might have rounded a corner on this whole separation and divorce thing. I kind of like being an immature bitch a little bit better, but being mature is what is making me a better person. Maybe. I'm still a little sketchy on that.

The children arrived this morning bright and early at 7:00am, and Mommy got everything squared away. Uniforms on, lollies on, hair bows in, teeth brushed, tennis shoes that have the weird interchangeable colored things all set. We were still ten minutes late getting there, because Mommy also had to get herself ready. I shall arrive at the football field in full MILF mode, and that's what this morning is really all about, because you just never know. The men's size small coaching staff shirt that was flung at me last week as an after thought looks okay tucked in, and totally detracts from the design standpoint of "this was designed for a man with broad shoulders and a beer gut, not a mom with a narrowing waist and nice rack".  I also took some satisfaction in knowing that I was the smallest coach out there, at least on the cheerleading end of things. Yay for the I-love-getting-divorced diet! It usually only works for one person in the divorce, and that would be me.

The first game was set to begin at 9:00, go for an hour, and then each game after that starts immediately. At least, that's how it's supposed to happen in theory. In actuality, it didn't happen like that, because this is football. I don't watch football, and I don't know a whole lot about football. I'll start to watch football and other professional sports when they start playing naked, as a sidebar. The younger daughter does her cheering bit at 9:00, and then the older daughter does her bit at the next game. So, again, theoretically, I should be rolling out of there around 11:00. Did I mention this is football and it doesn't work like that? The older daughter didn't finish her bit until 11:30, and by then The Ex and I had worked out that he would probably be at the concession stand for at least two more hours (since there were two more games left), and then he would have to clean out the concession stand, load the trailer, take all that shit to the storage shed at our elementary school and could then pick up the children at my house. He gave me the option of leaving the girls at the football game with him, and they could just run around with absolutely nothing to do. At this point, it was getting kind of hot and I was like, no, I'll take them home with me. The truth to the matter is that I am pretty sure if I had left the children there with him, they would have ended the day with dirty tennis shoes, at least one ripped uniform and probably two or more hair bows missing. So for safekeeping of the uniforms only, I brought the children home with me.

My plan was that I would be napping right now. Alone in my house. Instead, I'm watching the younger daughter drop goldfish into her fuzzy boots and then smash them with her foot, and watching the older daughter lay on the sofa watching TV. I had flights of fancy that I would do some serious blogging today, take at least one serious nap, do the laundry and clean the house, give my topsoil some extra love to make up for the last three nights of watering in the dark, and then blog a little more. Tomorrow morning I was going to go to work for a few hours and do a little catch up work, because I'm super behind, come home and take a nap and basically lay around and do nothing while I focus on re-energizing for the next week. If you've seen what my schedule is like (a few posts previous), you'll know why that re-energizing is necessary. But it's not working like that. I'm so behind on my fantasy schedule I think I'll have to cut out going to work tomorrow, which is annoying to me because I had categorized the shit I had planned to do tomorrow on my desk before I left work on Friday. I suppose this is all right, because all uniforms are accounted for, none with rips or tears in them, hair bows are in good working order and I think I have both sets of tennis shoes. I don't know where the fucking lollies are, but I've got a week to find those.

Oh, and our football team got completely routed for both games that we were there for. It was so bad that when I was walking back from the concession stand during a what-to-do-with-the-children conference that two older men, who both appeared to be about 70-ish and thus probably grandfathers, called me over to ask if we could just send the cheerleaders out there to play the game and maybe they could score a touchdown or something. I was like, HELL YEAH! We got some Grandpas in the house talking mad shit! Because really, that's what football is all about, right?