I amaze even MYSELF.

My 15 year old Greg is a freshman this year. He's been asked to play on the sophomore football team. I assume this is a good thing since it seemed to make everyone in the household who has testosterone get all puffy chested. I just managed to live through my oldest son getting through 4 years of football and now I have to get a Xanax prescription for another four years while Greg runs into other giant boys....ON PURPOSE. I keep trying to talk him out of playing..."you know I don't think you should play"...."But Mom...I like it"...."I think that mole on your leg looks funny...you shouldn't play." He never listens to his mother and now when that mole grows hair because he played football, he's going to wish he had.

So tonight was a home game. I packed up Emma who wasn't sure if she wanted to go to the football game because she said they might "shoot" her. Unless the rules had changed alot since last year, I assured her that we'd be okay. We found my Dad sitting in the stands with my ex-husband. We had a megaphone, programs, way too salty popcorn, bottled water. All the required elements of being a good football fan. I spent most of the game asking "where's Greg" and scanning the ground for twisted injured players. During the third quarter, Emma's interest in walking up and down the steps of the bleachers began to wane. Just in time, one of the booster club moms came through our area with a basket of "fan necessities"....you know...colored bead necklaces, signs on sticks, and big hand painted noisy cow bells. Now a smart mother would have said "hey gimme some of those beads" and handed them to her gleeful three year old thus becoming football mother of the year. But I said (idiot idiot idiot) Emma do you want to pick something?? PICK SOMETHING??? PICK SOMETHING??? Give a three year old a basket of stuff that contains large brightly painted cow bells and do you really THINK she'll pick the necklace...you're RIGHT! "Six dollars please!" chirped the booster club mom. Emma held the cow bell like it was the Holy Grail. My ex husband raised one eyebrow (wait, that would be both eyebrows since he has a unibrow) and said "this should be interesting". My Dad put his head in his hands. And then it began...ringing for good plays, ringing for bad plays, ringing for the cheerleaders, ringing for every person who walked by...I make my own hell, ya know? My oldest son was in the stands with us and said "MOM you are so DUMB". I looked at him evenly and then said "Hey Emma! Eric wants you to wake him up with your bell everytime he falls asleep this weekend!" Emma happily hugged her bell and said "I LOVE THIS BELL! I think I can cut that clapper out of there with wire cutters....I figure if I slither into her room on my belly wearing camoflage in the dead of night...I just MIGHT get away with it.