Let's see if I can manage not to do that again

“Mommy, I’m sorry I have such a big head.”

So said my youngest son a year ago while I was trying to fit a hockey helmet on his head. He does have a big head. And he has thick hair that makes his head seem bigger. So finding a helmet that fits is a challenge.

A few nights ago my oldest son was listing off math equations. What’s 80 plus 80? What’s 700 plus 700? What’s 8,000 plus 8,000? To my surprise my six-year-old was providing the answers: 160, 1,400, 16,000. “How do you know that?” I asked him, to which he said, “I have a smart head.”

Maybe that’s why his head is big. He needs it to fit his brain in.

I’m starting to wonder if I departed from my own brain when I agreed to be the manager of my son’s rep hockey team this season.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t want the job. But sometimes I feel like I can barely manage my own family, let alone 15 others depending on me to get them to and from hockey games for the next five months.

To help myself manage the team, I’ve bought a zipper binder. I hate to brag but what an amazing feat of organization. I have tabs, sleeves, dividers, folders, notebooks and a hole puncher. And did I mention it zips?

To help manage my family, I bought myself a whiteboard calendar. I hung it up in my kitchen and whenever I pass by it I marvel at my organizational skills. Anything school related is in blue, anything pertaining to hockey is in red and anything social or work-related is in green.

I’ve drawn a big happy face on the board so when I’m frazzled or feeling overwhelmed I can look at that smiley face and feel, well, still frazzled and overwhelmed. (It is, after all, just a happy face drawn in marker.)

Maybe I should have glanced at the happy face last week when I was in a hurry to get my entire family out the door and to a hockey practice. To save time I asked my oldest son to grab his hockey bag and bring it to the van while I grabbed the keys, my purse, his water bottle, our jackets and, of course, the zipper binder. We all piled in the van and I started backing down the driveway. “What’s that noise?” I asked my husband, to which he exclaimed, “You’re dragging something under the van.” I saw the look of horror on my son’s face as he screamed out, “My hockey bag!”

I jumped out of the van and sure enough, there was the bag wedged underneath.

When I finally stopped laughing at myself, and also realized I can no longer make fun of my friend Sonya for having run over her son’s hockey bag years ago, I realized that I am going to be a great hockey manager.

Yes, I ran over my kid’s hockey bag. But I still managed to get us to the rink on time and without a scratch on any of the gear.

As for the hockey bag…we had been thinking about getting a new one anyway.