Midget Football

I’m a little sad today. Football season is over. I know the NFL season goes until February and my Broncos are having a great year, but it’s not the same anymore. I have seen my son play tackle football and I’ve never enjoyed football so much. And I love football.

This was our first year in the midget football league. At first I was really worried. Two hour practices four times a week? That’s crazy! Putting players into positions and learning plays? Maybe, but doesn’t that seem too advanced? This is tackle football! What if he gets hurt? Fred was loving it all. I was just the woman who just didn’t understand. 

If I was a little worried about the hard practices, I was impressed by the coaches. After the first practice we had a parents meeting. Actually, it was after the second practice because the first one got cut short because of a storm. Looking back that was an ominous beginning to our season. At the parent’s meeting the coaches stressed the team as a family philosophy. They would look out for each other and play as a team. The coaches also stressed that the 6^th graders would get most of the playing time. The 5^th graders had to be patient. Their time would come. The 5^th graders were also charged with cleaning up the gear after every practice. I loved that. 

Then games started. We lost the first two. This was going to be a long season. Then we won the third. And the fourth. And the team kept winning. The team was playing better and they were doing it as a team. The leadership and family values that were being instilled in these kids was showing. The boys worked really hard and deserved every win, but I had a theory on why they won that first game: all their socks matched. The other team had kids without socks and kids with socks of all different colors. Our coach preaches unity and has high standards. We are all one and therefore we will all look like a team with the same colored socks. And everyone will have their shirts tucked in. And no sitting on the sidelines. You stand. It’s all these little things that really made me respect our coaching staff. And I never ever heard Torii complain about being overworked or that a coach was too hard on the team. The coaches had high expectations and the kids worked hard to meet them.

The season started with a storm, but the last game, mid-October, people were in short and t-shirts. Maybe it was fitting. The weather was beautiful and so was the last game. Our kids played in one of the three championship games in the league. It was a back and forth game with each defense unable to stop the offense. The other team scored late for the lead. We didn’t have much time left, but as time expired we scored a touchdown. An extra point would tie and a two point conversion would win. We got the two point conversion. The crowd was going nuts. I never expected the season to end like that. Especially after the way it started.

We had the team banquet the other night and I was really excited to go. It was only a couple of days after the championship game, but I wanted to see the team again. The season had gone by way too fast.

After the banquet I was sad it was all over.  I wanted more games. I wanted to get to know the parents better. I wanted Torii to hang out with his team a bit longer. Torii will return next year as a 6^th grader and I look forward to him being one of the leaders of the team. I will miss the kids that have moved on to the middle school teams. Some players Torii will be reunited with again at the middle and high school levels and some he’ll play against. It will be fun watching these kids as they become better at their sport. And it will be fun to chat with their parents again and talk about that one year in midget football when they won the championship game on the last play.

Appreciation

Last weekend I was at a conference where I heard a lot of great speakers. I laughed. I cried. I was inspired. One speaker told of how she and her daughter share three things that they appreciate about each other from that day. I decided to try this with my kids, but they would only have to share one thing, more if they would like. Knowing I was going to do this, I watched my kids closely all day and found it was easy to find things to appreciate about them. I didn’t know what kind of reaction I was going to get from the kids, especially with no warning for them. Cordelia immediately told me she appreciated supper that evening. Rion was also quick to say he appreciated all the meals I made and the food I buy for them. This was going pretty good I thought. Then I got to Torii. He laughed and wiggled. He really didn’t want to tell his brother and sister what he appreciated about them every night. I explained it was only between him and I. He didn’t have to say anything about his brother and sister. He still wiggled and finally came up with something to share.

The next night Cordelia was ready before I even asked. Rion had something to share as well, but also added that a lot of people don’t get to do things like this. He is such a smart and sensitive kid and I love it when he shares things like that with me. I think he really likes the idea of ending the day on a positive note. Torii was still Torii, but he did share something even though he may still think the idea is goofy.

I don’t feel like I’m very good at telling the people who are closest to me what I love about them and that’s why I wanted to start this new bedtime tradition. I want my kids to know how special they are. And while I may feel under appreciated at times, the responses I’ve gotten so far make me realize that I’m not.

When you get married, one piece of advice that you always hear is, “don’t go to bed angry”. But I’ve never applied that to my kids before. It’s so easy to get frustrated when you’re pulling a kicking and screaming child to bed or to still be upset about something that happened earlier. Adding this simple step to bedtime has eliminated that. How can you be mad at each other when you’re telling each other what you appreciate about them? When I see my child smile because I tell them about something that I noticed from the day, everything else just melts away.