You Will Sabotage Going There The first time that soccer practice rained out I was truly bummed. It was only the second one, and I made a big show of making it up to my daughter with ice cream and a new book to read. These precious moments of childhood play lost in the ether as I hurtle ever more towards my impending entropy and death... that got a little darker than I meant it to.

After a couple of months of late nights, extra dinners, traffic, and bug bites, though, you will be praying to Thor to smite the city with his mighty rain hammer. An hour a night doesn't sound like much, until you add another hour and a half drive to the factor. Then you have to deal with a cranky kid up past her usual bedtime that still needs her story time, teeth brushed, and clothes picked out for the next day.

So one day I picked her up from school to find her in a horrible mood where I couldn't even negotiate the putting of her shoes on the correct feet without a screaming fit. That's the day I pretended to check a calendar on my phone and told her that the field was closed for sprinkler maintenance. Not my best lie, but better than dealing with a three-foot bundle of rage in a field as the sun was going down.

You Really Get a Handle on Your Child's Personal Weirdness Ever since I started sending my kid to public school it's become very clear to me that she now leads this whole other life of personal interaction that I am completely uninvolved in. It's honestly a bigger shock than I thought it would be, because it's also when you really see the evolved Pokemon version of all the things you've poured into their heads.

For instance, I learned that five years of exposing her to Nick and Disney Jr. has apparently convinced her that the proper way to deal with tense situations is through song.

Several children that she played with on the field, for various children reasons, would get upset and not want to play anymore. They expressed this in various ways, such as sitting on their soccer balls with their heads down to out and out tears. The Kid With One F would immediately run over to them and start trying to comfort them with the "Tell me what's wrong" song from Doc McStuffins It doesn't seem to bother her that the accompanying score does not kick up behind her, but that's her schtick.

But it Really Is Magical Don't let anyone tell you different. We are made of our experiences. We are defined by the breadth of our forays into life. The more you do, the more you are, and watching your child take their first steps into whatever will be something that behold.

So yes, it's annoying, inconvenient, and often they end up dropping it all and not caring one way or another. It's also how you make sure they don't spend their lives consuming the creations of others, but go out and create life for themselves.