Two Years In (or Hockey Part Two)

And just like that, we’re past the two-year mark.

Two years and two months since we touched down after a sleepless trans-Atlantic flight. Two years and two months since we melted through an 90+° F first day in a temporary apartment with no air conditioning, before crashing through a splintering kid’s bed as we wrestled over-exhaustion and sharp homesickness that first 24 hours.  We crammed as many challenges into that first day as we could. Get the hard stuff out of the way first. 

That first days seems like just yesterday and a distant memory all at once, but in fairness time and memory seem a little dizzy recently. Any way of appreciating or reflecting on time spent doing anything feels like riding the spinning teacups after these last six months.  Give me a roller coaster over a spinning ride any day.

So, where were we?  A puck caught over the glass eight months ago sucked us into hockey becoming the next great adventure.  Next fall was “sooooooo loooooooong” from the end of the Junior Olympics for a kindergartener begging to finally get a chance to lace them up and try this new passion out.  He had no idea how far away it’d actually seem.  We are all so ready to safely pick up something new, to enjoy the normalcy of team sports we’d missed out on since tee-ball (naturally, it’s called Bubba ball in our neck of the woods in Texas).  We rented some skates for the season, made sure there won’t be many presents under the tree this year because all their hockey gear ended up being $urprise early Christmas gifts, dug out Chase Daniel Mizzou football jerseys to wear until the new hockey jerseys from the hockey school come in, bought an extra hockey stick because Cooper keeps switching dominant hands (or because great parents don’t make sure to have their kids check out which stick feels more natural before having the sticks cut to the right size), and committed to a season of hockey school come hell or high water. Both of which are probably on the table at this point this year, I guess. At this point, COVID-19 lockdowns are stronger than both hell and high water, so we’ll see.

Now we’re striding boldly into the world of sports parenting—over-confident, naïve, but sure that we’d never be one of the ridiculous ones who yell too loud, over-help, or care too much about 4 and 6 year-old competition.  Being a sports parent—even one of the laid-back, let-the-kids-have-fun-and-figure-out-how-hard-work-makes-a-difference, let-the-coaches-do-their-job variety—can’t help but get you stretched way out in the middle of an internal tug of war.  Especially when they’re on skates and their coaches are primarily French-speakers.  Do I go help when no one else does, and be that parent who walks out onto the ice?  Or do I let him struggle and fail and learn and hopefully still find the intestinal fortitude to stick with it? Do I yell at my kid from the stands when they decide to sit down during drills and repeatedly smack a puck against the walls while the other kids participate in the drills? This was supposed to be so easy. We’d bring the orange slices, occasionally, and then just sit back. I was supposed to be able to just watch and encourage and be amazed at how they transform my kids and all the rest of them.

Nash has been lumped into groups with older and better skaters, been conked on the head and shoved down, and had different coaches for the first three weeks.  He sets his stick down at the beginning of practice because they aren’t using them yet, and some other little knucklehead always grab his stick when it’s stick time.  Which is just the catalyst he needs to go ahead and deflate like a balloon. He gets so exhausted that he’ll occasionally take a knee or flat-out just lays on the ice sometimes.  He’s had meltdowns and frustration flare-ups (he takes to high-sticking and big ol’ windup and swings like a kid takes to a pile of leaves). Every one of the first three weeks, he’d end up being brought over to the edge of the ice once or twice by a coach…maybe to reset or maybe to just get him out of the way. 

Nash gets a little anxious every Saturday morning before practice, but damn if he doesn’t have grit, too.  He beams after practice, feels better because he has all his armor, and he’s even told his swimming teacher at school that he likes to do hard stuff because he can get a little better every time.  He made it through his first practice without coming off the ice a couple weeks ago, and since he can’t understand French, he chooses to try and speed skate around the group when the coach is giving instructions, knowing he’ll just have to watch and learn whatever drill she’s describing later.  As long as he’s not scared and still trying…keep on skating, punk. Thank God he’s the second one and trying to catch an older brother.  I’m not sure Cooper would have been able to stick it out at that age.  Lisa and I are pretty sure we wouldn’t have been interested in sticking it out, either.

Cooper though, he’s got the bug.  A buddy from school ended up signing up for hockey school too, and they’re encouraging and pushing each other.  He pushes hard in the drills, practices with indoor sticks and light pucks at home, drives us out in the rain to practice on his rollerblades in the alley across the street, and is down to go practice skating at the rink whenever we bring it up. 

Any guesses on what he wants to be for Halloween? 

A vampire hockey player, naturally. 

That spark he had when he started tee-ball is back, and for the kids who wants to pass on almost any idea for adventure we bring up, it’s fun to watch him dive in all the way on something. 

Of course the hockey school isn’t self-sustainable.  Luckily, the boys don’t have to sell a certain number of coupon books or cards.  You’d think selling chocolate bars would make sense as a way to get some extra revenue here in Switzerland, huh?  But that’s not on the nose enough.  Along with enrollment, each kid purchases a mandatory 15 bags of fondue cheese for the winter season.  30 bags will soon be making their way to our shoebox of a freezer. 

Only the finest fromage—fit for fancy, flavorful fireside feasts—for this family of four, found through the fun financial foundations of fondue fundraising.

Next time I’ll try and catch up a little more and let you know what life looks like this fall for us.  But I wanted to get up and running again sooner rather than later.