A Basketball Post- for Kate.

I have been a martyr this year.  Alex's school needed a basketball coach and once upon a time, in a previous life, I had been an athlete with a more than passing knowledge of basketball.  They knew that.  A little applied pressure, moments of 'you don't spend any time with me' pressure and I caved. 

I was the official coach of the Open Girls Basketball team.

Sounds high level, with your own team physio type stuff.  It was not.

My team, except for Alex are beginners.  I quickly realise I have done her NO favours volunteering.  She should not be in this team- but hey! They needed a coach.

My sweet, lovely, beginner, private school, white girls are playing in a South Auckland competition in the Open competition against girls who could be up to 19 and make me look slim and athletic!!!  The opposition teams would enable someone to make squillians of dollars from culture and class lessons!!  We began with some optimism.

We get our arse kicked.  Our worse was 136 -  6

Sometimes when we finally get a goal, my girls jump and clap.  I jump and clap.  I tell them how good they are going.  They are not but we are excited that the ball finally went in!!!.

Some of my best coaching lines- (I should be selling this motivational stuff!!!!!!)

Pass it to people wearing BLUE!  You are in the BLUE team!
Stop crying! You are not being MEAN if you contact them- that is the game!
I know we are getting whipped, but just imagine THEM in ball gowns????
It's okay, you only have to go on for another 15 minutes...it'll be okay?????!
Lets try to get the ball over half way this quarter!
This one, said excitedly-   It's the last quarter- we can double the score!!!  (2 to 4!)
Its not how good you are playing, it is how good you look!!!!  (thanks Peg!)
Man!  You guys have improved SOOOO much!
Okay, our aim for this quarter is to make sure we only pass to our own team
Remember that thing we practiced where you look and then pass...?
Seriously?  You don't want to go on???
Stay away from that enormous, stroppy one with tattoos,  that keeps swearing
Just don't get hurt or bruised! (this the week before their school ball)
Try to remember when you stop bouncing, you can't start again.....
I think we could have won this one if......(insert utter lies and positive ups)
STOP SAYING SORRY!  You haven't done anything when you bump into them.

When I come to work after a game, I regale Kate with the Mighty Ducks basketball atrocity and she laughs. 

Doesn't she realise this is SERIOUS!!  I take losing VERY badly but we are seriously out of our league and someone elses league and the league of nations and 20 000 leagues under the sea and any other league ever invented!!!

I meet one of these sweet, lovely girls' mothers the other day for the first time, she told me how much her daughter had enjoyed playing basketball.........

I had no reply.

The Totally Brilliant, One Hundred Dollar Plan.

"I have hidden $100 in your room and if you clean it, you might find it."

Totally brilliant plan that I imagined would lead to frenzied emptying, cleaning, moving, sorting......."

All that happened was she spent more time than normal in her room and the array of floordrobe items changed on an hourly basis.  A week passed.

"Where have you put it?  Can you give me a hint?  I have cleaned evvvveeerrryyytttthhhiiinnnnggggg.  Pleeeeeeeease Muuuuuummmmmmmmm?

"It's in there.  When you clean properly, you will find it"  - yes, cryptic and firm.  I high five myself!

More cleaning, more consternation.   The drawers get new labels, I can see the top of the dressing table- waahooo!  I am winning??? 

The weeks pass and the room is in varying stages ranging from average to foul cleanliness.  My bribe has run its course so I take it back. 

Now, my true error- I tell her I have taken it.

"WHY HAVE YOU TAKEN MY MONEY?? That is not fair, you have taken MY money and you said I could have it.  You always do this!  You took MY money."  My head nods, I appear to listen.  I vaguely hear all the regulars trotted out (mean, unfair, uncool, strict- did I mention uncool?)

but I am busy planning how I am going to spend my newly acquired $100.

For my next trick I am going to tell her I have hidden a 800kg Bull in her room and if she decides to air the room by opening the windows or the french doors one day, she might find it......

The Never Ending Story......

Recently I made a mistake.  I let Alex have some itunes purchases for cleaning her room.    Or…… I linked compliance that day, to reward.  

 In the immortal words of Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman “Big mistake!  Huge!”

Next time she needed to clean her room she said ‘can I have some itunes’  I considered and whilst doing some work, on the phone, I wrote a cryptic message:

Clean room = happy Mum = itunes.

As I have found out I should have written in a more academic and confusion reducing way:

Clean room[1] + happy Mum[2] = itunes[3]

My child could not understand that the instant appearance of the credit card did not coincide with the moment that the room looked ‘moderately’ clean.  I suffered from Teenage Hell statement bombing….

“You said….”

“But you wrote…”

“It didn’t say that!”

“you never said I had to……”

“Why do you always change the rules?”

“Mum, that’s not what you said!”

HUFF, STOMP, SLAM!  

---

[1] Clean room- constantly clean, not just done once with most of the stuff put into the wardrobe and the drawers crammed randomly with junk, the bed rising off the floor because of overstuffing.

[2] Happy Mum-  contented, over a long period of time, the absence of ants, rubbish, general clutter and the drawers being accessible so items can be found by one drawer being opened.

[3]  itunes-  songs I approve of, without random sexual content and swear words; which work as a reward for the longevity of room cleanliness and all-round wonderfulness.  Given as a reward for the clean room + happy Mum concept.

Oxford dictionary- Clean room (n) a place where bio-hazards are absent.  Order reigns.  Resembles page from New Zealand House and Garden.  Could be used as show home.  Smell very unlike old socks.