Team Mom and Safety Pins

There was no Google or Pinterest during my team mom year, and I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing!  I’ve been reading up on your present team mom duties and I must say you are NOT the team mom, holy smokes, you are the freaking team CEO! Far more pressure  for you these days!

I had volunteered a few decades ago to be a team mom for Matthew’s team. It was his second year playing organized baseball, about 9 years old. Did I know what a team mom really did? Not at all, just something about assigning after-game snacks. I really wanted to show how much I loved my little slugger😍 Did I ask anybody what I should do? Well no, I didn’t want other moms to think I was stupid or something! I DID write little snack reminders with paper and pen to give to the moms when their turn was coming up. And my greatest achievement was the realllllly interesting “Go Get ‘em Tigers” Banner! 

It took some painful research, painful because I did not know the first thing about sign making and crafts nor what kind of library book one would need to research this. I also had a few things in life I obsessed over that took up all the room in my brain; my freaking awesome kids, my night shift computer operator job, my passion for a singing career. The future craft, writing, law enforcement and general creative juice parts of my brain had not kicked in yet. 

So, logic it was! It was logical to assume letters could be cut from colorful felt squares; felt could be neatly laid upon a banner; a banner…….  could be……. um…….. a bedsheet! Yeah, a sheet! Okay, how to attach the letters to the sheet…… Glue! I used glue……. Until the letters DEtached instead of ATtach. Dang…. I know! Safety pins! Genius! 

Game time, here we come! So nervous, not for my superstar, but to figure out how to hang the darn banner. Well, up it went. Corners tied onto the backup fence, sheet slouching like a damp heavy towel swaying in the breeze, fuzzy warped colorful hand cut letters curling at all corners, each affixed with one shiny safety pin; you get the picture!!!! With this memory, it’s best to pat my younger self on the back and tell myself, “Epic fail but darn good effort, younger self! You are a flawed, normal person with a lot of good qualities and still okay in my book!”

Moms and dads who stay involved with your kiddos’ sports lives, my safety pinned felt hat off to you all!!!