In Which I Declare My Rule of the Bad Mother Club

It was almost 90 degrees in New England this weekend. We had two soccer games back to back -- one I coached, one the Kid coached. It was a solid two point five hours outside in an April heat wave, two point five hours filled with some excellent shouting coaching and it was awesome. And not just because both teams won, it was awesome because it wasn't raining and 40 degrees and because both teams won.

I wore red cords (huh?) and a black scooped-necked black tee shirt that I'd only recently bought at Old Navy for 5 bucks and which, I realized later, still had the tag on. A black tee shirt that left a half-moon of a sunburn on my chest and back and reminded me, stingingly, that the suns rays: they burneth. Especially when sunscreen-less skin greets the first scorcher of the season.

Naturally, the girls, sunscreen-less as well, got soccer tans too -- a rosy red inch above and below the knee and on the arms where the jerseys didn't hit and in between where their freckles aren't -- and the GFYO, well, it's hard to say. He was so covered in dirt from sliding down some filthy, tick-infested hill at the soccer field (he is no cheerleader that kid; he's been hauled to enough games to find a multitude of distractions on any sideline) that I never actually saw his skin that day. He fell asleep in the car after the beach (a two-minute ride) that happened after soccer and so the Kid delivered his dirty self straight to bed out of the car. For all I know, he also had the soccer tan -- or worse! Which means... 

My rule as the President of the Bad Mother Club is secure. 

All hail the Sunburnt Fair-Skinned Mother! All hail her sunburnt spawn! 

Me and my fellow Club members sat on the beach at sunset and drank beers and cooked hot dogs and told kids to shake sand off of grapes and just eat them. We had the eyes-in-the-back of the head ability to make sure no kid got too close to the fire (safety first) or the beer cans (lest they tip over -- the horror!) and naturally, like all Bad Mothers, we were excellent at letting the bed time slide and the good time ride so we could suck out the last few minutes of the first really great day. And after all, the cooler was still full.

Eventually (sigh), we had to be the other kind of Bad Mothers, even hopped up on a few Miller Lites as we were and wanting to hang out longer ourselves, because it was pretty obvious that a tantrum from at least one kid loomed in the very near future. It was late and it was getting cold, especially for me, sitting there on my ass, and especially on the parts of me that were officially scorched.

So my best friends' kids blew kisses to me and I sent some back. Everyone hugged through the car windows until I rolled them up. I was pretty sure my kids might cry or I would: it sucks to see a little bit of summer and your best friends drive away, even if some of 'em are just going around the corner. We made promises of sleepovers and plans for our week in the Vineyard. 

I searched for aloe at home, and like the sunscreen (which I never actually looked for in the first place), found none. The girls showered and went the way of the GFYO, straight to sleep -- sunshine and sunburns, soccer and sandy grapes, dirt slides on soccer fields and monkey bars at dusk and a Bad Mother who forgets sunscreen and sanitizing wipes and even the time sometimes makes for a very peaceful evening for parents and a very cozy, happy sleep for extremely exhausted kids.

Sometimes it is so incredibly awesome to be the President of the Bad Mother Club. Sometimes all the badness is so, so good. The half-moon solar tattoo? That, I could do without.