Friday, September 13, 2013

Personally...Soccer Snacks

This is my son's third year playing soccer. Snacks come with the territory. The first year he played, his coach put a emphasis on healthy snacks. I brought reduced sugar fruit snacks on my first turn and got laughed at. It didn't phase me though. We didn't have a lot of money at the time to spend on extra snacks; especially the organic, free of everything snacks the other parents were bringing. Last season, his team pretty much all brought packaged snacks and things like doughnuts. I felt better about my own snack choices (Goldfish and Teddy Grahams). This season we have switched regions, and while the parents seem less competitive in terms of how the boys play, they certainly aren't any less competitive when it comes to snacks. Why am I even writing about this, you ask? Well, two reasons. The first is, today is my first turn at snack. So far this season, the snacks have been lots of fruit during the half, and then some sort of sweet snack at the end (and lots of juice boxes and sports drinks). I've decided to bring a mix of green and purple grapes plus baby carrots for the half and then some cinnamon organic popcorn for the end. I have juice boxes and Powerades, I just don't know when to give which beverage. I'll be honest, I've been stressing over this snack a little bit. I'm worried about being judged. The story below might help explain it a little better.

The past two seasons, I've been lucky enough to have the game before Halloween. I love Halloween. I thought when I became a parent that I would get to do all sorts of stuff for class parties: makes crafts, bring snacks, etc. When I was younger, I had a party at school for every holiday. Well, the school district my son is in doesn't do that. They only allow two parties a year (Christmas and Valentine's Day), and you can't even celebrate your birthday there. Its very Scrooge-like, but apparently it has something to do with Michelle Obama's war on childhood obesity and parties just encourage bad eating, etc (but thats a post for another time, because I disagree). Anyway, to make up for his lack of party at school, I like to add a little extra to his soccer snacks. I don't go crazy with candy or anything. Just one fun size candy bar, whatever the regular soccer snack is, maybe a pencil or some vampire teeth- all wrapped up in a festive treat bag. Well, his last game this year falls on the Friday before Halloween, and the Team Mom asked if there was a volunteer for snacks for that game. I jumped at the chance, and I told her that I really love doing the snacks at the games before Halloween. And she just came back with "Great. That means candy." I've been told that I have a tendency to take things personally, but I felt like that was really rude. I'm not the most fit parent, I'll admit it. But I don't just shovel junk food down my kids' throats. So it hurt my feelings, and I'm kinda using tonight's snack as a way to (hopefully) show her that I can do healthy and that my Halloween snack isn't going to be all junk. Does that sound crazy?

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