When Chase was born, he was long and skinny (7 lbs and 22 inches long). As he grew into a kid, he has filled out a little, but honestly, not much. He's always been 95% on the scale for height and about 35-50% (and we were happy to get to 50, I'll tell ya) for weight. He's a tall, skinny dude. At the swimming pool, I have honestly been approached by strangers asking if I've had him checked for parasites...but I digress.
Pretty early on, he professed a love for football. Pretty early on, Larry and I said "Heck no." I mean, one tackle from one vertically-challenged husky dude, and Chase would be toast!
When we lived in Green Bay, all of the kids played football. And I mean TACKLE. And it seemed like a disproportionate number of them were vertically-challenged husky dudes. But, never to be discouraged by certain squashing and possible death, Chase begged and begged and pleaded and wept and cried...you get the picture. So, we relented. After much investigation into the local Pop-Warner program, and the discovery that they have excellent gear, great coaching and a very low injury record, we signed him up for tackle football.
Then we relocated.
In Denver, Chase wanted to play football, but the timing was off. We moved to Denver just in time for the cutoff, so he couldn't play that year. So, we found him a great soccer team. He immersed himself in soccer and never mentioned playing football again. Until now.
His new school has a football team, but thankfully it's a FLAG football team. Chase is in heaven.
We went to his first game last night, and after quite a battle, the Eagles were victorious 20-19. Chase pulled lots of flags, made one pivotal play that significantly puffed his parents up on the sidelines and loved every sweaty second of it. But I discovered that just because it's FLAG football doesn't mean Chase didn't hit the ground, oh, 47 times. But, those of you who know Chase know he has always really liked rolling around on the ground, so all is well.
Funny the things you say/think when your kids are young. "He's never going to play football. Too dangerous." or "I'll never overschedule my kid by having him in sports 4 days a week." Then they grow up and have their own opinions about what they want to do. Go figure - they have opinions!! And things change. All of the pledging you do about guarding their time and all of the disapproving you do of other parents' choices just go right out the window when it is something your child loves. I read once that being a parent means having your heart outside your body. The 11-year-old with my heart loves football. And I want that heart to be able to do what he loves. So, he's kinda overscheduled...I'll get over it.
3 comments:
In the great scheme of things, it is hard not to overschedule boys who love sports. We have three 1 1/2 hour practices a week for soccer plus a game on Saturday. Then there is Scouts, and Ryan is now Secretary/Treasurer for Student Council (can you believe it!) It is just crazy!
And being involved in extracurricular activities is a surefire way to keep them out of trouble...because they are too busy to get into trouble. So remember that's another positive!
My theory was always to "expose them to"/"allow them to participate in" as many things as possible so they could discover what they really liked for later in life. (and so they would have the skills to do what they liked best) We piano-ed, band-ed, danced, tennis-ed, soccer-ed (VERY BRIEFLY), track-ed, basketball-ed, gymnastics-ed, drill team-ed...well, you get the idea. My only "doubt" now is whether I should have insisted they include more CLEAN-ED in their repertoire. I think you are doing an excellent job of that, though, so I would guess you get an A+++!!! And...just for the record...6 years after high school Andrea is still loving volleyball and plays in 2 leagues.
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