Football, soup pots and skinny girls

SO the Packers won...did I mention that I'm a Packers fan? HEY HEY...don't go away...that's not what I'm going to write about. (GO PACK...couldn't help myself)

On Friday night, while I was at Greg's game, I did a fair amount of people watching. 1. So that I didn't have to watch giant boys running into my kid and B. Because it's infinitely more interesting than watching football.

High school football has changed alot since I was in high school. We spent most of our time yelling out cheers we'd made up while we sat in the stands (mostly to tick off the cheerleaders who couldn't get a cheer in edgewise) . Now the cheerleaders are more polished than ours ever were and there are mostly only parents in the stands. We had a parent who would bring a large soup pot to games along with a huge metal spoon. She stood on the sidelines and beat that pot for all it was worth until one night another annoyed parent de-spooned her. That's okay...she just beat it like a bongo instead...no one tried to amputate her hands. I'll bet her kids wanted to though.

I was watching the high school kids this past Friday. Almost every single girl looked like they needed to be held down and force fed a sandwich. SO THIN. The "dance squad" (when we were in the school they were called the "kennel club"...they were all a little on the woofy side) came out shortly before half time. They wear these little one piece, black, form fitting, teeny tiny uniforms and carry tiny pom poms. They are all very very skinny. Emaciated in some cases. Why do girls feel that's necessary to be beautiful? Not one of them had curves. Their faces were colored only by the make up they wore and not by the rosy glow of health. Emma and I were on our way for popcorn and I saw two of them standing and talkng. One was so thin. She reached down at one point and clutched the area over her abdomen as though she were in pain. Being someone who has struggled with bulimia in the past, my imagination began to wonder if these girls are hurting themselves to look the way that they do. And for what? Two minutes every other Friday in front of a small town crowd who is only half watching because the 50/50 raffle is going on at the same time.
It makes me sad, what society demands of girls..or makes them think they have to demand it of themselves. I remember the feeling that I had to be thin when I was in high school. But never to the point that it would have occured to me or any of my friends to take extreme measures to get to that status. (I didn't get to that until I was in my thirties). I look at Emma's round little baby curves and hope that she doesn't ever hate her body enough to harm it to be thin. But now I'm getting all Oprah on you.

The rest of the scene Friday night was pretty unremarkable. Parents I'd never seen before, a high school band that couldn't seem to get the whole marching thing down. I've never seen so many legs moving in different directions in my life. Our band leader would have been clutching his chest on the sidelines. We used to sell candy bars in the activity room, and now they have a sophisticated concession area selling grilled pork sandwiches, pizza, popcorn, several different drinks, tons of candy and snacks of all kinds. So much has changed.

The good news for Greg is that since Emma talked me into that cow bell...I can leave my soup pot at home.

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.