Writing Wrongs

August 16, 2006

Ah, August, when a young man�s fancy turns to . . . football. Andrew�s been bouncing off the walls ever since equipment pickup. In fact, he�s been wearing said equipment. �To get used to it, Mommy.� He�ll just lounge in it. Some people wear pajama bottoms and T-shirts for relaxing; some people like shoulder pads, helmets, and jockstraps.

The Vikings played Oakland in a pre-season game. Even more bouncing. More conferring with his dad, who was stuck at the airport waiting on a flight, about this or that play. More sage advice offered to NFL players: �Go for his knees!�

Then Kyra spied metallic pompoms. �Oh, Mommy! Look! Cheerleaders!�

And everyone was happy.

The other night was the first practice. We went over everything he needed to wear, more than once, since getting to practice is a timed challenge involving home/dinner/change/practice field. So Andrew had everything out and was doing yet another inventory. �Okay, I have my mouth guard and my jock.�

Ah ha. The essentials. The rest is negotiable.

Practice went really well. He�s still one of the smaller boys on the team, but he has speed on his side and is actually quite strong. He digs in and can�t be moved. There are some gi-normous boys on the team, and I think we�ll have a pretty good defensive line this year. These are fifth graders? A couple of these kids are going to hit puberty mid-season.

And one of Andrew�s best friends from fourth grade is on the team. It�s his friend�s first year, and since they�re partners for practice, Andrew doesn�t want to make his friend �look bad� but still wants to get the most from practice. Plus! His friend isn�t, uh, wearing a cup. �He really needs to wear a cup,� I told Andrew. �Mommy, I know. I told him cleats can really hurt.�

Yeah. A groin full of cleats. Bound to ruin your day. I contemplated the possibility of going up to his friend�s dad at practice and saying, �Hi, I�m Andrew�s mom. Your son really needs to wear a cup.�

Okay. So not going to work. I think this is a job for the coach.

It�s going to be an interesting season.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 1:33 p.m.

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