Raptors and Reusing

I had a lot of fun coaching my son William's soccer team this season.  There were six players on the U6 Raptors team (William helped come up with the name), and I did my best to keep them busy and having fun at each practice.  They especially loved playing red light green light (stopping the ball with different body parts that I'd call out after yelling 'red light') and sharks and minnows (with their parents being recruited to play the role of the sharks, of course). The skill level of a 4 year old versus that of a nearly 6 year old is pretty much like night and day, but I enjoyed the opportunity to challenge each player in a way that met his or her abilities.  I volunteered with some nervousness about the commitment, but it turns out I really enjoyed being "Coach Anna"... maybe not every moment was fun and games, like when a child would collapse in anguish because, gasp!, the other team kicked the ball away from him!  But there were always good lessons to be taught and learned about winning, losing, and having fun.

 This past week we celebrated the end of the season with a party at our home for the players and their families.  I also had William's birthday party on the horizon, so I was trying to think of how I could host these events with less waste (because parties sure can produce a lot of trash!).  I had one small but brilliant (I think) idea that I wanted to share.  You know how you always lay out the sharpie next to the plastic cups so people can write their name and keep track of their cup?  Well, the idea is all well and good unless you are like me and you like to wash and reuse your cups, in which case your guests start to feel a little funny with cups that say 

"Zachary  Justin Anna." 

 How about instead of names I put pictures on the cups!?  That way the cup doesn't carry a history of its users... just a nice picture to keep them straight.  I grabbed a couple of sharpies and scribbled designs on all my cups.  If I were trying to do it a bit more elegant and fancy I could have spent a while longer on them... but I was going for efficiency, and it worked just fine.  Now the trick was just remembering "Did I get the cup with the flowers or the one with the stars...?"

 And if we are hosting a party with 25 guests or less, I have enough reusable kid plates to go around, thus avoiding disposable plates.  Since I was already on the reusable track, I went ahead and put out the cloth napkins and flatware as well.

 So, instead of a trash bag I put out this plastic tub to collect everything that needed washing (that slice of pizza you see in the tub is really a pizza plate! kids love them).  It only took a minute to throw everything in the dishwasher and be done with clean up.  I still use some disposable stuff when I have to (with larger parties), but I like making less waste if I can.

 The soccer players loved getting to meet our chickens.  It was a fun evening of running around the yard, and I even let them hurl some water balloons at me.  Now the only question is, do I coach William's U8 team next season? Or Vera's U6 team?

By the way, after all of this "reusing the cups" business, I figure there are probably other great ideas out there... I've been to one party where there were lovely metal party cups to reuse, so I'm going to keep exploring reusable party ware... :)