Drew is able to play tackle football this year. Remember?
This is something Jake has always wanted to do this, but never weighed enough. The poor kid is in 6th grade, almost twelve years old and only weighs 55 pounds. But, he can watch his brother play, which I'm sure is humiliating so much fun!
Anyway, this is about Drew ... not Jake ...
The 4th grade Prairie Hawks Black football team has practiced every single weeknight for the past 3 weeks and have played two games. Won them both ... barely ... but a win is a win, right?
So, because I wanted to record this time in Drew's life, his first year playing tackle football, I pulled him out in the driveway and pointed my camera at him:
Of course this picture is insufficient, every mother wants pictures of her kid smiling ... so while the neighbors walked and allowed their dog to relieve itself on my tree, I hollered at Drew, "SMILE! I need you to smile. You're not smiling!!!"
"Mom ..." he groaned, "I'm a football player. We are mean. I can't smile!"
"We aren't going anywhere until you smile. I need you to smile!"
Rolling his eyes ... this is what I get:
Better half-assed than nothing, right? I'll take it.
Now, because I'm the wonderful mother that I am ... I don't want my rough, tough, mean football player, Drew, to forget 3 things that were said before a football practice last week.
1. Walking in on Jake and Drew fighting over the remote control I have to yell, "Come on Jake, just let Drew watch the Care Bears movie before he has to leave for practice ... then you can watch whatever you want."
2. The previous evening at practice Drew cut his leg really bad on a sharp piece of something on the bottom of the dummy his was tackling. The wound would break open and bleed every time someone even looked at it cross-eyed, so I asked, "Do you want me to put a band-aid over that so that you don't bleed all over at practice?" To which he responded with a quick, NO!" After asking why, he informed me he didn't want the bandage because it "would hurt way too bad when we had to take it off". Never mind the 4 inch gash in his leg ... a band-aid might pull some hair off when removed.
3. I asked Drew to just go outside and throw the ball around for a few minutes while I got things together for his practice. He walked out the door only to return three minutes later. "Drew? Buddy ... please wait outside." With a face as white as a ghost he responded, "No way! I saw a bee out there!"
My rough, tough, mean ... sweet baby boy Drew ... the football player!
