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