Catch Up-Football

The day of the first home football game Cade got to wear his shirt to school.  That night his team got introduced at half time.  Cade was so funny...he waved to the crowd the whole time he walked across the field.

Mop-Up Man

Where to begin with football…I'm sure you're all wondering about an update. I've got a few pictures of Cade, but I haven't had a chance to post them. If I don't take them with my phone I have a hard time getting them from the camera to the computer. AND our internet is down again so that's also delaying the process. I have yet to see Cade in action. The first two games I was stuck in The Icebox for our final two events. We decided since Jay was a helper it would be better for him to go to the games and I would stay behind to oversee the business. I'm not sure that I've exactly missed out on anything except watching Jay become the Mop-Up Man….

Jay has nicknamed himself the Mop-Up Man. I'm not sure if a nickname is really a nickname if you give it to yourself, but if you're the one lacing up the football pants you can call yourself whatever you want…. Saturday night (after game #2) I think Jay had decided he was done with the whole football thing. I won't go in to all the details about it (it is really funny to hear Jay tell the stories), but this might tip you off as to how it went – we got beat 8 to 24 but we played a 5^th quarter so all the boys could play. Jay has somewhat taken on the role of crowd control. I'm sure the fact that he's a teacher has something to do with this self assumed role – someone has to pay attention to the kids on the sidelines or all heck will break loose. So instead of becoming fully absorbed in the game he is breaking up fights, telling them to keep their helmets on even if their head is itching and telling them to ask one of the other coaches why they haven't played yet when they ask him for the hundredth time. After hearing the kids complain about one kid too many times the kid ended up next to Jay. Jay put his arm around the boy and held onto his shoulder pads. Jay said that the rest of the game it was going to be them together. It was just them together until Jay had another boy act up. He then had his arms around both boys with his hands locked into their shoulder pads for the rest of the game. I wish I could've gotten a picture of that.

But my favorite self-assumed responsibility is bathroom duty. At two minutes to game time one of the coaches said "oh…hey, do any of you need to go to the bathroom"? Several of the boys raised their hands so up the hill they headed. Jay saw there were no adults going so he went because he knew what would happen. Don't we all remember how bathroom time was when we were in elementary? Jay went to keep order, but he quickly realized there was another duty that had to be done – 8 year olds with laces where their zipper should be and a D ring where the button should be. From Jay's description of this I'm guessing it must've resembled the calf roping event at a rodeo – I wish I could do the sound effects that Jay can do but it was him quickly lacing them up, telling them to GO, and moving on to the next kid. When Jay was describing this to me I wasn't thinking and said "they can't take care of their own pants"? Jay looked at me like I was dumb and said "they are 8 year olds with laces in the crotch of their pants. No they can not tie their own pants". I should've known since we have to tie Cade's pants..,actually, I let Jay do it. The few times I've done it Cade's underwear shows.

So I think Jay deserves to keep his self-named nickname. If it weren't for him the spectators might have seen a lot more at Saturday's game than they had planned on…. Jay will not be at this Saturday's game because Alabama is coming to Fayetteville. I think we are going to go with him, even though a part of me would like to stay behind just to see what will happen. Can you get a penalty in Mighty Mites if your pants aren't laced????

Grumpy!!!

Yesterday before leaving for work I decided to throw in a load of laundry. I hadn’t planned on running home for lunch because I needed to leave early because of the fingerprinting. I changed my mind at the last minute because our stack of laundry was overwhelming. It’s a good thing I did because when I went home I saw we had two messages. It was the fingerprinting place letting us know they were experiencing an equipment failure and needed to reschedule our appointments. That made me a little crabby because we are on somewhat of a tight time schedule with this update. When I called to reschedule they put us down for Wednesday, September 15. I then talked to Clydene at the NEDC and she said we needed to have the homestudy to them by October 8. That was going to cut it too close if we left the appointment on the 15th. I had to call the fingerprint people back again and reschedule it for this afternoon. That was really not what we wanted to do, but we didn’t really have a choice. So this afternoon we get to drive to Springfield to be fingerprinted then turn around and hook up the ice trailer and drive it to Sarcoxie. Yes, it will be midnight before we get home tonight. The thought of all that driving caused grumpy moment #1 yesterday.


Grumpy moment #2 occurred at football practice last night. I will admit there is a particular father there that I’m not too pleased with. I know this sounds very unchristian like, but I think I could’ve kicked him in the head and not felt a bit bad about it. And hey, since I don’t think my fingerprints are stored anywhere could they have traced it back to me??? Yesterday, because of the fingerprinting thing, we sent Cade home with some friends. We decided to still stick with that plan because we didn’t know the appointment was cancelled until about 2pm. Trying to change plans in the middle of the day was too much. If Cade had gotten a message at school that he was to ride the bus to the HS even though we told him to go home with Kaul, he would’ve gone into a tailspin. We are enough alike that I know what something like that would’ve done to him. We aren’t big on having our plans changed at the last minute. So I got to practice a little before 6:00 pm and Cade and the Kleeman’s weren’t there yet. They had to get three boys ready plus pick up a 4th boy somewhere along the way. Most of us work and have other responsibilities (and other lives) outside of 8 year old football practice. They pulled up about 6:05 pm. No big deal, except to the father that I was tempted to kick last night. He made Cade run for being late. I can not tell you how angry that made me. This guy is not even the head coach. I’m not even sure he was asked to help – he is just there barking out orders to the kids. Not that the running hurt Cade, it wasn’t that far, it was the principal of it. Yes, if Cade was 17 yrs old and late to practice that is one thing but not when he is 8 and solely relies on adults to get him there. I was so aggravated because that guy had no idea what we were going through to even get Cade to practice that night. This is not the first time this dad has annoyed me and I have a feeling it won’t be the last. I know that may sound a little mean and uncharacteristic of me, but I’m not perfect. And I don’t like this guy talking to my child. At. All. It’s hard balancing the whole natural instinct to protect your child with not turning them into mamma’s boys. That’s the only thing that kept me from not kicking him in the back of the head…and that it wouldn’t have looked good on the homestudy either. But we did have one breakthrough last night. Cade came home from the Kleeman’s knowing how to tie his shoes. I don’t know how Cesare did it, but we really appreciate it. We’ve tried for years and finally decided he’d learn at some point but until then New Balance makes some really good strap shoes….

Grumpy Moment#3 started while watching this guy “coach” these 8 year olds through this scene…

Yes, that is pouring rain hitting my windshield.  You can barely make out the red uniforms on the other side of the window. Nothing is more irritating than trying to stare daggers at someone when you can’t see them clearly. Also, thank goodness for texting. Jay had a teachers meeting and got to practice about half way through. I kept texting him anytime the dad irritated me. I’m sure Jay got annoyed, but it made me feel better!

I’m at work today trying to let all of this go, at least until the next practice. We are going today to get the fingerprints taken care of, Jay is taking Cade to practice tomorrow night so I won’t have to look at the dad, and Charity sent me this picture. Life is looking good today…..

I think I’ve been fired as her picture taker. I was trying to get her and Lawson at the baby show and people kept getting in my way. It made me laugh when I opened my e-mail this morning. Shelley – I need a camera like yours!!!

Official Start of Football

Yesterday I had a monster headache (it seems to have carried over to today for some reason). I have a lot of stuff to catch up on at work and I had planned to stay late last night. My head hurt so bad though that I had to leave at 4:30. I was so looking forward to a night of staying home with all of us in the same 1600 sq feet and doing nothing. The minute I walked in the door that all changed. Jay said he talked to another mother and we were to pick up football pads at 6:00.

Yuck!!! I really do not care if Cade plays football for so many different reasons. Probably my #1 reason is I absolutely hate the way sports have started controlling the kids (and the parents) lives. When I has in HS we could play sports, but still have our summers off. That’s not the way it is any more – they have “open” gym nights that aren’t required but yet they are required, if you know what I mean. They just have all this crap that they have to do and have to miss out on so many other experiences that summer offers like vacations and having a job. I already know that if he continues to play sports we can say bye-bye to family vacations and cattle showing in the summer. Ok, I’ll try to get off my soapbox now, but it still irritates me!

The other two reasons I don’t care if he plays is pretty much tied for spot #2. I don’t understand it. At. All. We didn’t have football in Sheldon so I haven’t a clue what goes on. I just go to the games to talk. Then the other reason is that it terrifies me. Every time I see a player go down my first thought is “where is his mother”. If Cade goes down on a football field they will have to haul out two stretchers because I will pass out. I don’t handle things like that very well. If he makes it to HS football I’ll be the one on the sidelines with the back of my chair facing the field. I’ll be there to support him, I just won’t be able to watch it.

So back to last night. When Jay told me about the pads I said we need to talk to Cade to make sure this is something that he really wants to do. Jay told me I could ask him, but he knew what the answer would be. I called Cade into the family room and asked him if he was sure that’s what he wanted to do. When he said yes I pointed out a couple of the negatives – he’d be practicing in the heat and he’d be hitting people and getting hit himself. He gave me a strange look and said YES he wanted to play. A few minutes later he walked back by and I asked him again if he was really sure he wanted to play. His face turned bright red and he said “Fine then, if you don’t want me to play maybe I just shouldn’t” then he stomped off. I felt kind of bad, but he was so funny I started laughing. I was trying to be quiet so I was laughing silently which always makes me cry. Jay yelled at Cade to come back to the family room and he told Cade he wasn’t in trouble he just wanted to talk to him. So Cade came out and Jay explained to him I was just worried about him playing but it was fine for him to play and they were going to pick up the pads in 30 minutes.

While Jay was giving this speech to Cade about playing football I looked down and saw Cade had slipped on my wedge heeled sandals that I wore to work. That really made me start laughing. Since Cade was still in the room I didn’t want to draw attention to the shoe thing so I was laughing quietly. Which made me shake and cry even harder. I think Cade thought I was crying because I was worried about him so he gave me a dirty look and ran off. I didn’t know if Jay saw the shoe thing but he did because he said “as he was wearing a pair of women’s heels”. I lost it again. I was trying to be quiet but it was just so funny. I was on the couch shaking and crying even more. About that time Cade walked by and saw me. He screamed “would you just stop worrying about me already”. That made me cry and laugh even harder. What could you say to that? I couldn’t even speak at that point. I think Jay managed to get it all smoothed over with Cade before they left.

When they got home Cade was showing me all of his gear, he was so excited about it. Jay told me that he tackled Neilson pretty good while they were picking up the stuff. Cade patted his shoulders and said “Yeah, he wasn’t even wearing his knee pads”. Guess what… I lost it again. Then Cade put his helmet on for me and then tried to take it off. I had to video it. I hope it will play for everyone, if not let me know. It’s too good to not share. As much as I thought Cade had grown into his genetically large Shepherd head, I guess I was wrong. I may not have to worry about Cade playing when he gets into HS – they may not make helmets big enough!