I have a son who is a jock. Let's just get that out there. Kidlet B loves sports. He stays after school to play intramurals, whereas I was the kid staying after hours to work on poetry for the literary magazine. I even tried the Math Club in middle school, but was so lame that I was designated the runner with all the completed sheets. Go, team!
I wasn't surprised when last summer Kidlet B made the comment that he wanted to take up football. Did it scare me? Most definitely. The words, "head injury" kept going through my mind. This was the kidlet who fractured his arm - twice - in the same place in one summer. I discussed the idea of his participation with the pediatrician. I talked to other parents. And I wondered where my once little six pound kidlet found the desire to go bang heads and smash other beings.
I run and work out on the treadmill. That's the height of my athletic ability. My family tells me I run like a duck, so that should give an indication as to how I may appear should I one day make it to the Boston Marathon. Quack, quack, quack. I don't have to look far to know where Kidlet B gets his inspiration. His father and his uncle are both athletic. His dad played multiple sports and continued to do so until a few years ago, and his uncle...well, Sprout is Mr. Baseball. After playing on the high school's state winning team, his legacy goes on in the family as the SuperJock. FocusMan, my other brother, and I, pale in comparison. Kidlet B wants that experience, I can feel it.
I agreed this year to football, despite thinking of the little Rice Crispy guys and hearing, "Snap, Crackle, Pop!" on my son as he hit the field. The sound of helmets banging makes me ill. At the last game I shouted out, without thinking, "Don't hit my son!" as other dads were screaming, "Get him! Kill him!" I had better get used to this, though, because at age thirteen he is already 160 pounds and over 5'5". He's a big kid, made for the sport.
Today is his first game for the playoffs. I am going to wear the same outfit I wore for when they clenched the game for entry. Faded jeans, black sweater, black clogs. Am I being superstitious? Anything for my son. Kidlet A and I, along with Auntie C, will stand on the sidelines (I'm too nervous to sit) and watch. Kidlet A will ponder, like I so often do, why people want to go and smack each other around. It's a paradigm in which we don't belong.
Kidlet A has not yet joined the Math Club. He's not making his mother's mistakes, and is venturing out on his own, like his brother. He wants to go to Sweden as an exchange student. Sweden! I can't yell from the sidelines across the ocean. I will simply have to put on my jeans, black sweater, and clogs, smile, hug, and send him off into success, just as I am with Kidlet B. This is their time.
