Tag: bedtime

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Before I had kids, I had this vision that I’d run my family would be like a sporting event. I’d use the referee calls, cheer the goals, help practice the plays. When I would have a babysitter, I’d give them a referee shirt and a whistle. It was mostly humor, a way to envision what life would be like, and I even got my dearly departed dog, Biscuit to do some signs in that year and a half he over lapped on this Earth with my daughter.

When you borrow from all the sports, there is a great list of calls to use. Here are some of my favorites, adapted to my purpose:

• Delay of game: Any time we are dilly-dallying on the way to the car, the bathroom or bed
• Roughing the cooker: No touching the cooker when knives and hot pans are involved.
• Illegal use of hands: This has wide latitude for interpretation but means getting into anything or everything that Mom says “no” to is not allowed.  
• Out of bounds: A very useful call because Mom gets to decide what is in and out of bounds
• Water hazard: We live in Seattle – there are a lot of water hazards, especially in the Spring that need to be avoided whenever we are going somewhere without a change of clothes.

The possibilities are endless! And useful if you could hand out yellow cards for “fouls” and the players would know to mind themselves? As much fun as I had thinking all these up, it isn’t the way I run my family. Mostly because I’ve found I’m more in the game than a referee. But there’s one idea that has stuck in my head. As a single parent, I have to play the full 90, as they say in soccer. There are no substitutions. And the last few minutes, the ones right before I get the second child to bed, especially if there are “extra minutes,” are when most mistakes can be made. In those minutes, I just try to keep my head down, bring the game to the close and pay no attention to any trash talking. Because as soon as the whistle blows, I can head back to the sidelines, mark the day down as a win, lose or draw and rest up for the next game.