Better Than Soccer

WAY better. I think that our family experience with soccer was one of the most painful things we've explored together. Here's why:

1. The boy was way too young.

2. Daddy loves sports--but soccer? Not so much. Not one of his games.

3. The very cooperative nature of the sport is perhaps antithetical to the boy's genetic makeup.

4. Attention span was at an all time low

Baseball has so far been a joy. Daddy is the coach and that is working very well. I'm actually pleasantly surprised with how well C is accepting him a different role. This week was our fourth game and we seem to be in a groove with a good dugout system and the kids understand the field positions really well. Everyone is still struggling with when to run and throw to first base...or maybe its just struggling with where first base is...can't be sure. The team is made up of all very nice families and almost all of the dads are out there with their kids helping to coach.

After our game yesterday I felt lousy and went to bed for a few hours. It was a combination of stress (long week at work), headache, neckache, and allergies due to the fact that we've officially turned of the A/C in the house. Its a bit early for us to do that, but we need some financial recovery from the $450 a month electricity bills.

After my nap I picked up some nice steaks and wine and we grilled out on the deck which we have barely seen nor used the whole summer. We hooked up the ipod speakers and rocked out for awhile. We even convinced C to give us a dance show on the upperlevel of the deck while we sat in our chairs as the audience. If it hadn't been so dark I'd have tried to video it. It was priceless. One of the best 60 minutes I've had as a parent, honestly. He was totally into it and was even trying to break dance. He also has a special move that's all his own that involves some sort of vertical hand positioning in his sweat pants pockets. Just hysterical.

All that Chris Brown foot action wore him out and he fell asleep in my arms in the rocking chair a little while later while I sang Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" to him. Sitting there looking at him I developed my own total alternate interpretation of that song and decided that it could easily be about parenting and how we think we have things all figured out until we have kids and we realize how fragile the world is, along with our grasp on it. How they come into our lives and all of the cock-suredness dissolves. How they make us find our cores and strip away the arrogance in our relationships with them. I'm sure its not what Chris Martin et al intended, but that's the nature of art...