Liam has been a fan of soccer for years now. His neighborhood team was quite good, and got to the point where they had no competition in their league. Now I've never been a fan of select sports for young kids, but after seeing him start to get bored I allowed him to join the select team being formed with the better kids from the local team.

Liam was a solid player on the team, but as always, he carried a little attitude with him. So of course it wasn't long before his coach called and said he was on the verge of asking him to leave the team. His skills were fine, but he was being mouthy and disruptive in practices. I told coach I would talk to Liam and he would be better. I did, and he was, and he finished out the season.

The next two seasons they played again, but Liam chose to do BB and VB instead of year round soccer. So when Fall came back around Liam found out that there were now two teams instead of one. And that since he hadn't been playing he got stuck on the lower team. The lower team was D6 - pretty much the lowest level of select, and the upper team was D4.

Liam dutifully played his season of D6, and was just about as bored as he was in his old league. He did get the chance to sub on the D4 team, and as soon as he took the field it was obvious that he was one of the top players on the team. At one point one of the new coaches looked to the main coach and asked if they had just found Liam this year. I kept expecting his coach to ask him to join the D4 team, since he is one of the better players, but he never did. It seems he never got over the issues from the previous year.

At the end of the season they were trying to decide what to do for the next year. I found out that they were having tryouts at his soccer club, but I really wasn't sure why. He was already on a team. But I went anyway. As always, Liam was clearly one of the best players on the field. He was really upset at the end because his team didn't score any goals. I told him not to worry - that he stood out even more so because he was on a weaker team. But he didn't believe me.

Sure enough, 2 days later we got a call from the D1 coach (different from the current coach). He said the assistant coaches called for him to come over and watch Liam play and he agreed that he was a D1-level player and wanted to offer him a spot on his team! How many players have you ever heard of who have gone from D6 to D1 in one season? We were super excited.

But then the politics come in. Turns out the reason for the tryouts was current coach wanted to merge his team with D1 coach's team and have 2 D1 teams. After tryouts (or maybe even before) D1 coach decided he didn't want to merge, but that he did want a couple of current coach's players! As you can imagine, this didn't please current coach. So current coach decided to move to another club (Star).

Now does he tell Liam about this in time for Liam to make it to Star tryouts? Of course not - we find out about it after it's done. But on the other hand he wants Liam to play for the team again. And in Star they will again have 2 teams, but this time a D1 and D3. But of course he wants Liam on the D3 team! And we really can't get him on D1 since the Star coach has never seen him play.

We eventually agreed to have him play Star, but I'm just incredulous as to how crazy this has become. Why can't he just be on a decent team with decent competition? Is that really so hard?

Apparently so.

On the plus side, Liam is playing great, and has plenty of options. And if this doesn't work out I'll just take him to another tryout next time!

Denis had a very sore throat. His Ama (grandmother on Mimi's side) had him gargle with salt water, which helped. Only not for very long. After he left our house to stay at her's for the night he needed something else, something that would last longer. Ama suggested Listerine, but then worried it was a little too strong, and that it might keep him awake. So she went through the cabinets to search for something else.

She came back with a bottle and a smile. She told him he should try this, it's orange so it should be milder. Denis happily took it - he was scared off a bit by her reaction to the Listerine. So he took a good pull of it, began to gargle, ... and spit it out forcefully!!!

It was now that he noticed how it bubbled in his mouth and the weird taste (even though it was in fact Orange flavored). Hmm.

When he could finally talk he asked Ama to see the bottle. It was of course Orange Scented - that was good. But reading more closely he found that insterad of mouthwash it was Hand Soap!! That part not so good.

There is an important lesson in all of this. When Ama gives you something - especially medicinal - READ THE LABEL!