This weekend felt like a solo parenting marathon. The younger boys were both in a soccer tournament with three games each. Additionally, the youngest was also in a baseball tournament with four games. Feels like one of those grade school math word problems! The answer is, the boys had 10 sports games total.

Strangely, only two of the games conflicted forcing a choice of which to attend for the kids. I was not as lucky. With some of their games overlapping, I had to ask for help in getting them to and/or from games. Additionally, I had to decide which games I was going to attend in an attempt to make it fair. Hoping each kid felt supported over the weekend.

Once all the schedules were released, I plotted out the schedule on paper. It was helpful for me to see when everyone needed to be where and in what uniform. This also showed me a clearer picture of where the overlaps were.

I reached out and asked for help from teammates where I needed it. Unfortunately, I missed more games than I anticipated because I forgot how long baseball games are. One of the kids teams won their first game ever and I missed it. I texted him right away to congratulate him but it was hard knowing I missed witnessing their celebration first hand. Another one of the boys got to pitch in his baseball game, and it was the only baseball game I missed. His brother narrated the pitches to me from the app and cheered his brother on as I drove us back.

Even if Tony was here, we wouldn’t have been able to see every win or every pitch. But we could have divided and conquered, so one of us would have been present to witness and encourage. I don’t know if the boys felt their dad’s absence this weekend, but I did. In the end, I drove 200 miles shuttling the kids back and forth to everything and I know I did the best I could as a solo parent.