Timmies, Tantrums & TSN Prospects: Chronicles of a Serendipitous Puck Mummy
Sometimes I am not so good at following through on teaching life lessons. Especially when the lesson is teaching my kids that, as they are old enough to pack their own water bottles, I am not going to pack them for them nor am I going to carry the water bottles to the car, nor am I going to carry the water bottles into the rink, nor am I going to ensure the water bottles make it out of the dressing room onto the bench.
I suck at following through on this hockey life lesson, routinely filling, packing and carrying the water bottles from my kitchen sink to the bench.
The problem is I am fearful of what happens if they don’t have the water bottle. I worry that if they don’t have water they will somehow die a slow dehydrated death towards the end of the game or practice. I am sure if I goggle “forgotten water bottle” I will get at least one hit which will verify my fear.
The kids do somehow manage to remember to bring the water bottles home, but they never seem to make it out of the hockey bag… The pile up until I retrieve them from the dark smelly recesses of the bag when I can’t find any clean bottles and go searching to find some, you guessed it, to fill for the next game or practice.
To those of you who also struggle with teaching this life lesson, I suggest my recent solution… buy a 24 of bottled water and keep it in the trunk of your people carrier. That way, you can pull a bottle out to ward off dehydration at any time. Yes, not the most environmentally friendly solution, but far superior to an early death brought on by lack of liquid. This suggestion will work handily until the freezing weather hits and then, well, you are back to the sink to fill the bottle to carry to the van to carry to the rink to carry to the bench. Look for me, as I will meet you along the way easily identifiable by my water bottle…
