X-Man is angry with me. Again. This time it's because I won't let him carry Gestated Cinco. I'll let him hold her, but he has to sit down. He thinks he should be able to carry her. Presumably with his arms around her neck and her feet dragging on the floor, but who cares about details?

He's also taken to responding to any instructions with a most definite "ahhhhh....NO". He finishes it off with a coy look and slight smile. And running.

As a result, due to the simmering tension between the two of us, X-Man spent today following me around the house shooting me with a little purple gun. "Boom Mama".

This last weekend, as many weekends this summer, was spent at a soccer tournament. The Mount Hood Challenge is one of the larger tournaments in the country. 600 teams, 26,0000 spectators. And $150 in gas. I only wish I was exaggerating. Both Baby and Baba were participating. Of course, they would play in varying venues, never closer to each other than forty minutes.

Baby struggled in the tournament. Not with her soccer playing. She's still the rockstar in that department. However, she and gravity were engaged in a fierce battle that resulted in numerous victories for the forces. Literally. I think it's because she was playing for a new coach, as her old coach had yelled at her, more than once "Baby stay on your feet or I will pull you from the game!" And he wasn't being harsh, she was quite the road hazard.

By her final game, Baby had figured out how to fall down, take two opposing players with her and pop back up with the ball, while the others were still trying to figure out what happened. See, when you've been falling down for months on end, you're not confused by the experience. She actually managed to score once on that move. And, as she was always to first to fall, she didn't actually foul anyone. She also had a beautiful cross for a score that involved both a flying ball and a flying shoe. The shoe also hit an opposing player, causing mass confusion as Baby took off after the ball, shoeless, leaving the opposing player to wonder if it had actually started raining shoes.

Baba played a much smoother game. I must salute the Mount Hood Challenge committee for managing to pair up two teams that were as evenly matched as humanly possible. At half time, the score was 0-0. End of game 1-1. Five minutes of sudden death....scoreless. Second five minutes of sudden death....scoreless. Time for penalty kicks. Seven on each side, final score 1-1. At this point, the ref was looking a little annoyed. I loudly suggested that the coaches arm wrestle at mid field. The surrounding parents applauded this idea. Since no one can repeat their penalty kicks, it was time to pull players off the benches. Now, you might assume that someone, at some time would actually get the ball in the goal. But if that was the case, we wouldn't have needed ALL THE OVERTIMES IN THE WORLD. So we plowed through entire bench. In the end, their goalie shot against our goalie. The ball touched the white line as the goalie was grabbing it. The ref saw it and decided "close enough!" And we were done. 45 minutes after the game allegedly ended.

I was unable to get Baby to her game and Baba to her game at the same time, in locations thirty minutes away. So Baba caught a ride with her coach. And as a result, she walked away with a commemorative t-shirt that he bought for her, along with one for his daughter.

I decided to proof read Baba's thank you note. It started out very generically, very polite. It crescendoed into her joyful announcement "I was really wanted to get one. But I didn't think I would because I knew my mom wouldn't buy one for me."  Ay yi yi.

Meanwhile, the father figure is very excited to learn that the local parks and rec starts flag football at age 3. He has big plans for X-Man. I still only see inebriated penguins when that boy runs.