I’ve entered a new phase in my life. This one came as a surprise. Unanticipated. Out of the blue. It all began sometime last winter and I’m still not sure how. But the first omens of it came during the Olympics last winter. LightGirl announced that she wanted to watch the hockey games. As the first game began, she ran to the schoolroom, grabbed the “H” WorldBook Encyclopedia, opened it to “Hockey” and proceeded to watch the game with book open on her lap to the page with the pictures of a referee on it with all of his hand signals. She watched all the games in like manner until she had memorized the ref’s calls and knew what they were before they were announced.

She wanted to take skating lessons. Simple. A neighbor was taking her son who was at the same level. So, off she went to skating lessons. She needed skates. Sometime in the spring she needed a stick for stickhandling lessons. Early in the summer she went to a day camp for hockey skills. Then she needed ….. e quip ment.

This fall we found a team for her to play on. It’s a good team. She loves it. And I’ve become …

… a

hockey mom.

What? How did this happen? One day I was just a mom and now I’m a hockey mom.

I went to a game on Saturday. I sat in the stands with about 4 other moms watching our girls do something we could never do. We weren’t allowed. So it never crossed our minds when we were their age. Most of us never even dreamed of it. We just stomped on those dreams before they even saw the light of day. We don’t speak of that of course. But there’s a light in these women’s eyes and I know I have it too. My girl isn’t going to have her dreams stomped on. She’s going to grow up stronger than I was. She isn’t going to have to be twice as good as a man to be considered half as bad. So I sit in the stands, work on my quilts and cheer these girls about to become women. They are learning how to skate hard. How to fall down and get up while their legs are still moving. How to make mistakes, but learn from them, and to not stop. How to get their heads in a man’s game and keep up.

Maybe, just maybe, all things being equal, things will be equal when she grows up. At the very least, she and her generation may be more prepared for it than their mothers were.