The first thing that comes to my mind, all the time, is -- please don't let me have been one of "those" moms!  I was a lot of moms -- a PTA mom, a room mother mom, a 4H mom, a boy scout mom, a ballet mom, a theater mom, a band mom, a jazz choir mom.  But maybe the most "mom" I was was a diving mom.

There was a time when Ned's friend Matt was on the diving team and Ned started copying him when they went swimming at the local pool and seemed to be pretty good, so when he said he wanted to join the diving team, I let him try out and he got in.  I don't remember how old he was, but probably 8 because he dove in the "10 and under" group for a bit.  Paul joined him, perhaps at the same time and eventually all 5 kids were in diving.  It seemed we were at practice (I almost wrote "rehearsal") or diving meets all the time.  We drove all over the state.

A lot of our friends had kids on swim teams and they drove all over the state too, but I loved diving because with swim meets, it was an all-day affair, you competed in several events throughout the day.  With diving you showed up for the time of your event, you did your thing, you got your award (or not) and then you could go home, unless you wanted to stick around and watch your teammates.

Our kids won awards

Sometimes big awards, sometimes small awards, sometimes participation awards, but I hope I was never pushy, never tried to make them do something they didn't want to do.  I only remember being a pushy mother once.  It was before a big meet and Ned was one of the top divers on the team.  He was miffed about something and decided he was not going to go to the meet.  I gave him a lecture about how I didn't care if he never dove again, but his team was counting on him that day and he was going to dive.  I hope the lesson was the importance of the team and not that i wanted him to go and make me proud.  He did make me proud but because he didn't let the team down.