Packing for a hockey tournament

What you need to not forget for the next hockey tournament: (*Note I found alot of these as helpful hints from a soccer mom)


1) SUV or Minvan—required to carry one kid plus items #2-31

2) Sports specific equipment and uniform. In my case, hockey equipment:(Helmet (that fits), extra screws for helmet(they always fall out at the most inconvenient time), stick, cup, garter (or shorts with velcro), matching hockey socks,neck guard, mouth guard (and extras), hockey pants, hockey tape, stick and back up stick and for those moms/dads lucky enough to be the parent of a goalie, don't forget the blocker, pads and glove.

3) Cooler—filled with Gatorade, water, grapes, other fruit that is easy to keep and fun to throw

4) Igloo waterbottle-1 quart size at least

5) The kids (and your) other clothes like pajamas, underwear, jackets, flip flops for the pool at the hotel, sweatshirts and gloves and hats for those, cold, cold rinks.

6) seats for the bleachers to keep your bum warm

7) Your kids regular medicine…who can forget that tournament that someone forgot their child’s Ritalin?

8) Advil, Tylenol, Benadryl (never know when someone is going to have a reaction to something.)

9) Band-aids, Neosporin

10) Car Paint, in case you win the tournament. You can drive home in an embarrasing show of glory.

11) Camera, video camera, film, batteries and battery chargers

12) D.S. or psp or handheld game of choice.

13) Ipod/laptop/cell phone and all required chargers.

14) DVDs for car ride

15) Your GPS system

16) MapQuests (my GPS seems to fail at the worst time, lose signals in a storm or tell me to turn right now when we are on a bridge, but that is a whole other story)-**before the trip it is extremely PRUDENT to get the address of your hotel, the rink you will be playing at, and the restaurant you are having your team dinners at. Then create and print out maps from home to hotel, hotel to rink, etc. It’s even more PRUDENT to actually bring these on the trip (I have a mental block on that step for some reason).

17) List of Cellphone numbers (in addition to them being plugged into your cellphone) for the other parents, coaches, and teammates for when you or they are lost or your team caravan from rink to restaurant gets split up

18) Earplugs (even if the kids have a bedtime curfews-some of the parents like to party and don't realize how loud they are outside your door).

19) Hotel with bar

20) Valium or any other member of the Diazepam family

21) Back-up hotel in case you get kicked out of the original one (high likelihood)

22) Bathing suits and goggles for siblings of the athletes- One of the very few BENEFITS for the poor siblings who must be dragged to these events is that they get to swim in the hotel pool and the athletes don’t (or atleast between games, the athletes don't). It certainly doesn’t make it worth it to them, but at least they have the POOL.

23) Deck of cards, magazines, games (remember the games or events are often just a small portion of the day, you must find a way to fill the rest of the day with “quiet, resting” type activities…Not Allowed are: swimming, working out in the hotel weight room, one coach even banned going to the mall as it was too much walking, and running up and down the halls or stairs of the hotels, etc.

24) Extra set of car keys for when you can't find them or lock them in the car.

25) Lots and lots of money and credit cards to buy all the sweatshirts and hats and $40 action photos of your children taken at the tournament.

26) The kid

27) toiletry case and everything in it
28)*books/mags for mom to read, People/US others are great to buy and read and share w/other moms....when else do you have 48 hours to do nothing but catch up on Lindsay Lohan, Brittany and whoever happens to be hot at the moment.
29)*kids backpack and homework and novel so s/he can get homework and required reading done in the car or hotel
30) Crockpot with meal to offer for when we rent a banquet room and need to provide a hot meal.
31) Snacks, snacks and more snacks. (Snacks and drinks at the rink will run you a small fortune)



I have at one time or another forgotten nearly every item on this list, some of them numerous times. Actually, as I re-read over the list the only one I haven’t ever forgotten is #1, which would be impossible. So, clearly I’m an experienced idiot.
The good news is there is a Wal-Mart in every town and the coach forgot to specifically say “No going to Wal-Mart”, so that is often how we fill our time between games. Good Luck

If anyone can come up with more, please let me know.

Work or Stay At Home

Some days I come to work and am okay with the idea of being a working mom. Today is not one of those days. Today is one of the days where I google the positive and negative sides of being a SAHM vs. being a working mom. I have a great job...weekends off, holidays off, summers off, great benefits and eventually a good pension. But I have to get my kids up super early and rush them off to daycare and before school care in the cold, cold early mornings. My poor (almost) one year old has now had 5 ear infections because people send their green snotty, hacking kids to daycare and get my baby sick. Now he has to see an ENT to possibly have tubes placed in his ears. My other kids who I stayed at home with didn't need them. They were hardly ever sick. This poor little guy is always coming home with notes that kids have strep or hand,foot, mouth disease or even H1N1. My salary basically covers my daycare but eventually they will all be in school and I will have a full check. If I give this job up, I don't think I will get one like it back too easily. If I could be guaranteed another school position in 5 years I would definitely take a hiatus, however these school nurses die in these positions. I swear they stay in them until they are 100 years old. Well I have one more day after today and then we are off for eleven days. Maybe I will feel differently after the break.

ENTERPRISE CAR RENTAL IS HORRIBLE

You may remember a few weeks back I rented a car while Pete's was in the shop for what I thought was a great price of 9.99/day. Well they charged me 9.99 a day for the first three days (the special) and then 28.99 for the next 15 days even though the woman there said we could continue at the same rate. Conveniently she was out of town for a few weeks and unable to be reached when we returned it and they say we are to pay the full price. I will NEVER use them again. They are horrible and I should have looked at their reviews from the BBB before using them. It says alot. DO NOT USE ENTERPRISE CAR RENTAL. We are disputing the charge now with our credit card company but I am sure that we will get stuck paying it. Great that $600 dollars could have better been used for Christmas shopping for the kids.

Baby Sign Language

I have a student who is deaf in my school and was looking for sites that could teach me sign language and came across this one with games and what not that would be great for kids (and adult slow learners like myself).

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Labelandlearn.com: ASL products and fun!

- Our goal is to inspire communication between parents, teachers,

therapists and children by providing innovative and accessible

products that express style, fun and function.

I wish I had...

I wish I had a remote control that I could just press mute and not hear all the b.s. from people's mouth. I have such a headache and I have to sit and pretend to listen to these people's boring, life stories and pretend I actually give a crap. Not to mention my dear 13 year old son called his assistant coach a jack ass. Well the coach called him one first and he called him it back but I still think he should have just ignored him and told me and I would have dealt with it for him. Now he looks like a punk kid with no respect for authority. See if I had that damn remote control I could have muted him before he spoke back.

Christmas Pic 2009

HUMP DAY

and no you pervs that is not what I meant by the title. Thank God it is Wednesday. Half the week down and only two more days until the weekend. Still NO news on the damn car so we have the rental for a few more days. Still no estimate so we don't know if we have to sell our bodies to pay for the repair yet or not. Perfect time for this to happen with the holidays approaching. UHH

I hate cars!

Well Pete's subaru which has like a million miles on it just had the clutch go. Of course it happened on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It is at the shop still and it is now Monday. We are still waiting to find out how much this baby is gonna run us. People have told us that the clutch can cost from $500-1,000. I am praying this isn't so. Not to mention we had to rent a car for the weekend because Pete had to work and Rachel had to get to and from a hockey tournament all weekend so we couldn't have just one car. We did, however get the greatest rate I think possible. $9.99 a day for a little toyota corolla. Every other place wanted $20 something a day but Enterprise in Latham had this great rate. :)Too bad we have to return the car tonight and still have no car for Pete to drive. Good thing he is off tomorrow. Rory (my step son) is coming up and we are having our Thanksgiving family dinner. Can't wait. My hubby can cook!!!

Collin Meets Santa For the First Time

Twas the Night Before Christmas

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We are actually celebrating on Tuesday...I know totally unAmerican. We have good reason though. Rachel has a tournament starting tomorrow so I couldn't drive down to the city and the kids were at their dad's today and I didn't see cooking dinner for just me, Pete and the little ones. Tuesday night, Pete's son is driving up and we will all celebrate then. Today we went to Cracker Barrel because it was one of the few places that were open on Thanksgiving. I thought we would be the only losers, I mean people not eating with family but the place was mobbed. You got a turkey dinner, drink and dessert for only $8.99. Couldn't beat it.

Rachel

Andrew

Brickbreaker Baby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs1IhRsev8Y

Teaching Mommy: HA HA HA HA HA! funny#links

Teaching Mommy: HA HA HA HA HA! funny#links

FACEBOOK FUNNIES

I must admit I do like facebook. I have a blackberry and status updates come right to my phone. I usually don't see what is on someone's wall unless they post a new status or I have commented to something at which time I can see what others have said to that post afterwards. I must admit that one of my best friends is the funniest person alive whether she knows it or not and her post from yesterday morning made me almost piss my pants. (Not that that is hard to do these days, being very pregnant and having to cross my legs when I sneeze after having delivered five babies with big irish heads). Back to what I was getting at. I can always count on KBOB to give me a good chuckle. She has a friend, and I am sure we all do that posts random status comments on facebook about doing laundry or some other daily boring day to day event well KBOB's response was in her own status: It said she is "standing then sitting, then walking, then talking, then breathing, then possibly thinking, then..." Maybe I am the only one who found this totally amusing but I had to share. :) In adding humor to facebook some people offered me interesting status comments to put in. My favorite being: "just finished my kegals and my vagina feels tighter already". I laughed my ass off at that one but don't have the gonads to actually use it in my status comments. What are some funny or amusing status comments that you have seen?

Birth Stories

From my first post it was commented to share what I meant about my husband and I delivering our first child. Not as crazy as some birth stories. I wasn't at home or alone like my mother when she gave birth to my brother Jude. The year was 1995, and it was the 26th of October. My husband (ex husband now) was at his martial arts practice and I was six weeks from my due date. I was on the phone to my mom in NYC chit chatting and felt something warm but when I stood up it stopped. I told my mother I thought my water had broken and she insisted it was way too early and that I just peed on myself. (Note to all - go with your gut) Luckily I didn't listen to her. I called my ob and they told me to come to the hospital. I called the hubby home and off we went. No contractions, nothing. They tested the fluid and the fern test showed it was amniotic fluid. I had torn the bag of water alittle. When I stood it stopped because the head blocked the hole. Needless to say they told me that I would have to deliver within the next 24 hours to avoid getting an infection. My doctor checked me and told me I was only 3cm and it was my first and would be a while and that he was going to sleep. Now it is me and my then husband and I was all of 21. We hadn't finished our lamaze class but the stories that stuck in my mind were those that were told of crapping when you push and that was my worst fear. I was young and naive. I didn't worry that I would have a child with anything wrong with him or her. I just assumed I would have a healthy baby. My fear was that I would go to the bathroom on the table in front of the staff. So 10 minutes and three killer contractions later I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and I tried to walk to the bathroom while my husband is telling me not to push and out came my son's head. He delivered 6 weeks early but was perfect from head to toe. (Well not toes cause we later came to find out his toes were webbed) but hey he had ten of them.

Where to begin?

I am what people call computer challenged so this blogging is all new to me but people on my parent boards have them so I thought to myself, why not? I am hoping to get input from others on what I should do or not do or do more of to make this a more interesting read. I went for my 24 week obgyn appt yesterday and while I was sitting there in the waiting room for over an hour it dawned on me that in a little over three months I am going to have another baby. I swear I think I have been in denial this whole time. Now my youngest is currently almost 11 months old and the two will be 15 months apart and that should be no biggie considering my first two were only 12 months apart, right? Well I was alot younger then. 13 years younger to be exact when I had my second a year after my first. I was young and energetic and supermom. We did play groups and mom groups and went to the library and park weekly. We did field trips to the airport and museums and took swimming lessons and now I don't have time to both shower and eat in the morning.

Well I found out that I am hypertensive. For those not knowing what that means it means I have high blood pressure. Why would I be stressed and why would I have high blood pressure? I just waited for an hour in a crowded waiting room to be called in to sit for another 15 minutes in a small office. I am overweight, eat horribly, am running around with five children and expecting my sixth. I work full time to watch my entire paycheck cover the cost of daycare and the cost of hockey for the four of my children who play.

Paying for hockey is like building a new house. You find a house that you would love to buy and the price seems ok or atleast within what you expected but then when you go to sign the papers and they are like oh, you wanted a toilet in the bathroom and a front door or carpet or padding and before you know it you are up thousands of dollars above what you thought the house would cost you. See, hockey is the same way. My daughter made the A team and I thought how wonderful and was so proud of her but be careful what you wish for. Aside from the registration and monthly ice assessments and equipment purchases and upgrades and tournaments and extra ice time at a training facility and warm ups and fundraisers we are close to two thousand dollars for the year and the season just started in late September. Now I will complain and complain often about the cost of hockey but I love the freaking sport. We have season tickets for the River Rats (AHL) team and although we often miss games because of our own hockey schedule, it is nice to get out and watch the team. My daughter's team is going Wednesday night as a team and have box seats. Me and the other children will it in our regular seats. My husband hates everything about hockey. He offers to stay home with the baby who he insists will never play hockey, however every morning the baby grabs his plastic hockey stick and pushes a ball around the house. I think my husband will have to continue to work way into his old age so the little one can have his ice assessments paid for.

The only good thing that came about from my appointment is that they are going to induce me the week before my due date. I know alot of people have issues with induction and believe a baby will come when they come but for starters I will most likely be battling hypertension the entire pregnancy. Secondly, I have five other children that I will now be able to arrange child care for when I go into the hospital instead of finding someone in the middle of the night that can come over and sit with them and the part that makes me so happy about the induction is that I will get to have an epidural. I have VERY quick deliveries and last time they were just able to get the test dose in and I had to push. With my history of rapid deliveries this doctor feels it best to have me come in before so it can be in a controlled environment. Meaning my husband and I don't have to deliver this one like we did with my oldest. :)

Sorry for being all over the place, I thought I wouldn't have anything to say and then it took off in all different directions.