FAIRFAX, Va. - America's ultimate soccer mom is just getting off work. ''Here,'' Joy Fawcett says, unwrapping her aching calf and handing her 2-year-old daughter, Carli, a melting ice bag. ''Want to water the grass?''
Fawcett's 5-year-old daughter, Katey, is wandering around the practice field at George Mason University, checking in with Aunt Carla and Aunt Christie and Aunt Shannon. Just another sweaty day at the office for their mother, who just happens to be the world's best defender on the world's best women's soccer team.
Fawcett has been wearing a US jersey for a dozen years. She is 31, has a degree from Cal-Berkeley, has an Olympic gold medal, is playing in her third World Cup, and is raising two kids. Mia Hamm may be the role model for every 12-year-old female booter in the land, but Fawcett is the role model for their moms, who get exhausted just shuttling the Shocking Pinks back and forth to matches.
''Gosh, I can't believe you do this,'' they tell the Ultimate Mom. ''How can you run all day and chase after these kids? I don't know how you have the energy.''
Actually, this is the easy time. Fawcett's husband, Walter, and her parents have been in charge of amusing the girls while she's been knocking around an assortment of Danish, Nigerian, and Korean forwards.
The challenging time was when Fawcett had her daughters with her during the team's lengthy training camp in Orlando this winter. Or two years ago, when Fawcett was playing for the national team, coaching both the UCLA varsity and a youth club team, and juggling a toddler and an infant.
This time, for three weeks, all Fawcett has to do is play while her family watches from the stands. Next year, when the team is preparing for an Olympics halfway around the world, things will be back to ''normal.''
Normal is lugging her daughters to Portugal. Normal is two-a-day practices while a nanny minds the girls and Carla Overbeck's 2-year-old son, Jackson. Normal is Walter, who works for a small California high-tech firm, flying in once or twice a month for family time. Normal is nightly phone calls with the cellular being passed around. Normal is checking out road towns for kiddie amusements. ''We take them out to the parks and the pools,'' Fawcett says. ''We hit the malls. And I pack a lot of toys.''
When the diversions wear thin, there are 19 surrogate aunts down the hall who are happy to play a game of cards, read a book, or discuss the intricacies of the 3-5-2 offense.
Carli is vaguely aware of what her mother does for a living. ''You're going to kick a ball?'' she asks her mother. ''OK, as long as you come back.'' Katey knows everyone by name and number. ''One game, she was telling our nanny, `I think my Mom's benched today,''' Fawcett says.
Slim chance of that. Fawcett has started 140 of the 144 matches she's played since she joined the team as a Cal sophomore. She was back training a week after giving birth the first time - and nursing in the locker room between halves. Fawcett, her teammates testify, is a workhorse who never seems to run down.
After Fawcett took a year off following the 1996 Olympics to have her second child, she came back and played more minutes than anybody else on the team. There was no question that she would stick around for a third World Cup this summer. And Fawcett is planning on taking a second run at Olympus next year.
''The love of the game,'' Fawcett muses. ''If I didn't love to compete and be a part of this team, I wouldn't do it. And if there was ever a time when I thought I was hurting my family or my relationship with my husband, I wouldn't do it.''
Not that the absences and distances haven't been stressful, particularly this year. ''My husband is very open about his feelings, about missing us, hating for us to be away for so long,'' Fawcett says. ''But he also understands that this isn't forever.''
There are times, she concedes, when a straight 9-to-5 job looks damned attractive. ''Just go in there and be out,'' Fawcett says. ''It'd be nice just to be a mom for a while. And it'd definitely be more simple.''
But the World Cup comes once a quadrennium, and by the time it comes back to the States, Mama Joy will have hung up the cleats. This is the time for ice bags and nannies, for cell phones and playing in front of 78,000 people in Giants Stadium with ABC's cameras rolling. And for serving as a role model to soccer moms everywhere.
''I have three kids, and I said I couldn't play soccer,'' a thirtysomething mother was telling Joy Fawcett yesterday afternoon. ''Now I don't have an excuse anymore.''
