🎵🎵 Oh Happy Day🎶🎶

" all our lives we've tried,
And often found contempt for us.
So on we hied to lesser gods, who treat us less as clods
And more like men
Who would be kings a little while." Ray Bradbury

Cue the music! It is indeed a happy day around here. Football is back in all its fabled glory. Last night high schools hosted pre-season scrimmages, today middle schools jamboreed, and rec fields hosted pint size players taking their first snaps and making their first tackles. Aaahhh, football, we've missed you!

Football isn't just a pastime around our house, it's a way of life. Tucker and Tanner learned to walk on fields freshly mowed by their Daddy; they sprinted their first hundred yards on a field painted by some dedicated dads on a late Thursday night; they blew their first whistle to a group of eager high school boys. It's in their blood, just as it is in their Daddy's.

Today, at approximately 10:00 am, Tate went under center for the first time. He completed his first "game" pass, ran for his first official yards, and felt the first of many hits from a kid whose birth certificate is still in question. He and his teammates, most donning helmets and shoulder pads for the first time, took their first steps on what will hopefully be a long road of sweating, sprinting, and sucking it up.

See, today was hot. These seven year olds played in their first jamboree, and they played two back to back games underneath an unforgiving sun and a relentless humidity. And they couldn't quit. And they couldn't sit. And they couldn't retreat to the stands or the parent tents when they'd had enough. They had to play on. They had to sub for a teammate who needed a water break. They had to sip, sip, sip and head back for more. They had to block; they had to tackle; they had to run when they weren't sure their little bodies had any steam left in the engine.

Today, a group of seven year olds finished what they started. It wasn't easy. We watched as pre-game giggles and sideline horsing in game one turned to flushed faces and somber looks of "how much longer?" in game two. Football isn't easy, and it isn't for everybody, and some of those players may decide one day to bow out gracefully. But today they got a glimpse of what all the grown up coaches, players of yesteryear remember so fondly: teamwork, touchdowns, time-outs in a huddle with secret codes and words in a language only they understand.



Few things are better than being part of a team. Few things last the way football's lessons do. Long after 7u football ends, long after high school Friday nights are yearbook memories, long after the pads and helmets have been put away and the trophies and pictures are left to gather dust, little boys and big boys alike will remember the joy, the pain, the frustration, the triumph of a Saturday morning win, a Friday night loss, a deep in the trenches tie on a colder than cold night.

When they take a test, start a new job, lose a friend, move to a new town, struggle with something no one else understands, football will be there, coaching them up, urging them on, yelling from the sidelines, "don't you quit on me!"

And those boys, men by then, will smile, snarl their lips, dig their feet a little deeper into the dirt, and press on until they reach the end zone, the goal line, what ever theirs might be. They'll finish what they started.

I'm so glad my boys play football. I'm so glad Tucker and Tanner and now Tate and soon Truett have been introduced to a sport that demands so much of them, requires the best of them, and gives so much to them in return.

Oh yeah, and that Coach over there, I'm so glad he introduced ME to this lovely game of offense, defense, and special teams and made me not only a football wife but made us a footballfamily!

Food, Football, and the Four Horsemen

No matter how hard we try, time marches on. Some days faster than others, some days (much) slower than others; but time never stops and it never slows down. If we're lucky, on the days when we stop to catch a breath, count the years, and consider all we've accomplished, we catch ourselves in a smile.

Today, Billy and I are celebrating 17 years of marriage. Seventeen years of "I do." Seventeen years of sooooo much more than just words and cake and pretty dresses and handsome men. Seventeen years of learning, compromise, change, trust, mortgages, kindergarten registration, baseball tryouts, drivers permits. Seventeen years of soooooo much good-- seventeen years of smiles and laughter and messes and big fat belly laughs because the only other option was tears.

Today, I'm stopping to catch my breath, count my blessings, and tally up those seventeen years of food, football, and four amazing boys we get to call our sons.

I have to put food first because I feel like I've been cooking for two decades straight. Who knew, so many years ago, how much food 5 guys could go through in a week? Certainly not me. I feel certain Kellogg's and General Mills will be calling me any day now to see if my household will become a "test house" for all their new products. If there really is a Big Brother, he not only knows what goes on here, but is probably shaking his head at the cereal bowls, spoons, and sheer amount of milk I go through daily!

It's not all head banging on the kitchen counter every afternoon, though. Some of my favorite memories exist simply because I made an extra batch of Rice Krispy treats one afternoon or because we decided to stay home and grill out instead of heading to a restaurant. i do hope when I get to the big Kroger in the sky that there's a yellow piece of paper and a total of all the money I spent feeding these growing boys ( and maybe a few of my favorite cashiers up there, too). And Cokes, definitely Cokes. But I digress.

There's no way I can even begin to grasp how much impact football has had on us and our family. I think the first "real" tears Tucker ever cried was when his Dad's team lost a nail- biter. He stayed up that night and wrote his dad a note, professing him the greatest, smartest football coach ever-- win or lose. Then he taped it to the wall where Coach would see it first thing when he came home that night. The boys have chosen football games over friends' friday night birthday parties and learned to crawl on the field house floor while Coach graded film from the night before.

Football has moved us from house to house, community to community, school to school, and neighborhood to neighborhood, introducing us to some of the best ( and maybe a few of the worst) people around. Our boys were all welcomed with field house baby showers and babysitting offers from the best moms from offense and defense.

Football has allowed our family the joys of winning big games and celebrating together afterwards; Football has also taught all of six of us how to handle defeat on the field and off; what to brush off and what to let sink in; how to move on after the death of a young coach/friend; and how to put everything into perspective. The past seventeen years has all been wrapped around football, and we are better for it.

Finally, the best part of the last 17 years runs us ragged, football to baseball to wrestling and basketball. They eat me out of house and home, keep my washer and dryer on repeat cycles, and have given me a new appreciation for spring scent bathrooms cleaners and deodorizers. I have come to accept frogs and salamanders touching my skin. I can throw a pretty good spiral most days. And I buy every pair of pants and jeans with the full expectation that they will make it about a month before they come home with a hole in the knee.

Congratulations to my best guy, and happy anniversary to us. I look around at all we have accomplished and I like what I see: 2 quarterbacks, a wide receiver, and a determined little brother. I see more messes, more ridiculous belly laughs, more falling Christmas trees, more Friday night lights, more Saturdays on a diamond under the sun, and more good than bad.
I see you and me looking just as good as we did back then. Maybe even better😉

Most importantly, I see you and me, still together, still putting up with each other, still smiling while we do, still counting our blessings, and marveling at this crazy life we call ours.

Life is short, the years rush past, A little boy grows up so fast

I'm almost a month late for my birthday post about my super special third son, but with four boys in my life, late is the new early for us. We spent another glorious week in Destin as Tate celebrated being 7 years old and being lucky enough to spend each of those birthdays on the beach. Seriously, how lucky can one get? He rode go carts at The Track, saw Finding Dory, and had his birthday request for spaghetti served up with a side of DP. He opened all of his cards from his family that arrive in the mail and finally got to see his BIG present from Mom and Dad-- and it didn't disappoint. He drove his RC car all around the house and condos and flipped it, rammed it, and may have even taken out a toe or two of mine, all in the name of birthday fun. He finished off his big day with a late night swim, a bike ride with his brothers, and plenty of hugs and kisses from me!

So now that I've relived Tate's big day in detail, I'd like to "relive" Tate in detail and make a little running list of all the blogworthy qualities etched in my mind the last seven years.

First, it wasn't all sunshine and roses-- that baby would. not. sleep. Ever try having a newborn during a stressful football season? I wouldn't recommend it. Many nights when Coach K. had had a particularly trying week of practice and/or had a rough game looming, I took to the roads at odd hours of the night to get the crying, whining, angel out of earshot. Not sure what happened, but that night owl sleeps like a boss and has made those famous words- this too shall pass- my mantra.

But once we cleared that hurdle of sleeplessness, the sun did shine and the roses bloomed and they're still blooming and shining as I write this!

Oh what an angel, what a doll, what a precious, precious child I've been entrusted. This child makes the sweetest gifts (even if it's not your birthday), he loves to help in the kitchen with pancakes and cracking eggs, he loves to share (namely my phone, my cokes, and my money😉), and he takes care of his baby brother Truett better than anyone I could have trained. He changes diapers, fixes sippy cups, finds the perfect shows on TV, and has become the name most called for in the mornings!

What I think I love most, though, is that this child never stops talking. Like, never. Like, #howdohisteachersdoit? #ihaventfiguredouthowtohushhim. Either way, we have all learned to love the constant questions, the constant observations, and the constant conversation from the backseat. I see great things in the future from this little guy, based simply on the fact that his questions STUMP me sometimes. Some days, ok, many days, he comes up with something either so deep or so scientific that I can't even FAKE a good answer. More often than I'd like to admit, I've resorted to a simple, "I don't know, buddy," or "let's google it when we get home."

I guess maybe it's the fact that I have a son heading to high school in a couple of weeks that's swift kicked me in the pants and made me realize that we only get so many of those back seat conversations, so many early morning breakfasts, and so many evenings snuggled on the couch watching some HORRIBLE Disney or Nickolodeon comedy that they find hilarious. It dawns on me a little more each day that we only have so many years when they really are shorter than me, slower than me, and not as strong as me. I watched from a distance the other day as the oldest two boys threw the football, and from where I stood, they were not the little boys in the backyard I knew, but real teenagers practicing for something big.

Now that he's seven, Tate begins HIS football career in tackle football and will slowly start chasing those big brothers on the field and in all the other things that they get to do but he's always "too little" for. I thinks it's hitting me with the school year coming and the football schedules on my calendar that I may wake up one day and watch from the top of a hill, not my little boy in the backyard, but another teenager who is taller than me, faster than me, and stronger than me, following in so many footsteps before him, hurrying to become them.

For now, though, I have a chatty, curious seven year old who likes to throw the football with his mom and, for now, thinks I'm a pretty good receiver. And I'm holding on tightly to that. And to him. And to the other two perched on the edge of the nest, anxiously waiting for their turns to fly.

Irrational Love and Delight: a birthday blog

Yesterday's sermon at 12 Stone Church, the 2nd in a series called Parenting through Proverbs was the perfect message for a mom getting ready to celebrate the 15th birthday of her first son. Admittedly, this birthday stirs emotions that haven't stirred in a while, with a driver's permit in the near future, a part time job on the horizon, and spring football with the high school happening SOON! I can't really put into words what parenting is like, considering that we are at four different stages right now: I'm teaching one to drive and another to go potty, sometimes simultaneously. But I do know that, Tucker, you make this thing called parenting worth every crazy minute.

One of the things the preacher mentioned yesterday was how fast time moves. The days really are long, and the years really are short; and they're busy, and they're messy, and they're consumed by friends, school, sports, homework assignments and projects, and somehow, some way we as parents attempt to throw in life lessons, discipline, tough love, direction, advice, and wisdom enough to send them out into the world safely and with a good conscience and morals and convictions and more. The preacher then asked the question, a question that perhaps gets lost in the middle of all I just mentioned: when our kids look at US, looking at them, do they see disappointment or delight?

Oh, the delight! In every year, every grade, every sport, every smile. So much delight! Every Christmas, every birthday, every little moment I had alone when we would steal off to the grocery store together. New delights, when we shopped for school clothes, new baseball gloves, every new friend you make. Unimaginable delight, when you held your baby brother Tate for the very first time, when you babysit your baby brother Truett with cartoons and piggyback rides and secrets not meant for mom and dad.

Oh, the delights still in store for this mom who today celebrates your amazing birth, your amazing personality, your gentle spirit, your quirky sense of humor, and your FANTASTIC taste in music!

I chose this poem because I love the words this dad has for his daughter, and even though it is written to a daughter, I think they are words every one should hear. So listen, ignore, absorb, roll your 15 year old eyes at me. Just know that I love you with an irrational love that can't be defined with just words, but for an English teacher mom I think these are pretty sweet words.

To a Sad Daughter
by Michael Ondaatje

All night long the hockey pictures
Gaze down at you
Sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.

Threats of being traded
Cuts and wounds
-- all this pleases you.
O my God! You say at breakfast
Reading the sports page over the cereal
As another player breaks his ankle
Or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
But I like this more.
I like all your faults
Even your purple moods
When you retreat from everyone
To sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say like
I mean of course love
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(Coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
Though you were moved by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I'll come swimming
Beside your ship or someone will
And if you hear the siren
Listen to it. For if you close your ears
Only nothing will happen. You will never change.

This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said
I'd rather be your closest friend
Than your father. I'm not good at advice
You know that, but ride
the ceremonies
Until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
Discovering your friends
I ache with a loss
-- but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone into
My purple world
And lost you.

One afternoon I stepped
Into your room. You were sitting
At the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
And sun spilled over you
Like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
Was coaxing you out of the house
--all those possible worlds!--
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at Forsythia now
Without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
Into the wild world
And your real prize will be
The frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
Break going out not in.
How you live your life I don't care
But I'll sell my arms for you,
Hold your secrets forever

. . .

Don't recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon's
Yellow suburban annunciation. . .

Forget the poem if you will, but know that your mom loves you forever.

Good Guys Wear Jerseys

I saw a facebook picture the other the day that kind of got under my skin a little. I let it go. Then, it rolled through facebook again a few days later with several likes and shares, and I thought, okay, I can't let it go again. So here goes:

The picture was a suggestion that a hero isn't a guy whose name is on the back of his jersey, but a guy who defends his country. This isn't a bash of our soldiers-- in fact, I wish I could adequately thank all those who serve or served our country with more than just "thank you." Rather, it's a chance to say that heroes wear all sorts of uniforms: dress blues, jerseys and shoulder pads, and plenty of others.

Two nights ago, the quarterback for Clemson, playing in his biggest game of his career so far, was captured on camera wearing a wristband that simply says, Pray4Eli. I bet Eli thinks he's a hero. I wonder if just by seeing that a sophomore qb, with the weight of a National Championship on his shoulders, took the time to add that bracelet to his uniform, made an 8th grade boy's fight with cancer a little bit easier, at least for a night.

Speaking of that Clemson quarterback, when he was nine years old, another guy who wore his name on the back of a jersey for a living, stepped up and furnished the house that his single mother helped build through Habitat for Humanity. It wasn't the first time that Warrick Dunn had bought a house or furnished a house for a single mom and her family and it wasn't his last. I'm pretty sure Deshaun Watson is just one name on a list of many who think Warrick Dunn is a hero.

J.J. Watt who plays for the Houston Texans is a you tube sensation for his aggressive plays on the football field, but he's got just as many videos of him visiting kids who struggle with being bullied and kids who spend their afternoons at after school facilities.

Finally tonight, I saw that Tim Tebow is planning more than 200 proms for students with special needs. Tebow has been praised and criticized as a football player AND a Christian, yet he continues to live his life serving God and serving others.

See, yall, good begets good. Kindness begets kindness. Heroes beget heroes.

And it doesn't matter if you run for touchdowns, hit home runs, or fly fighter jets. Or if your name is on the front of your shirt, the back, the sleeve; whether it's a first name, a last name or a nickname. It doesn't matter. The other things, though, they do.

Too Good to be Tru

I think it's fair to say that the news in summer of 2013 left us all a little speechless. A fourth child definitely
wasn't planned, but quickly became a special surprise for all of us. As the days and months wore on, I can't tell you how many times Tate begged me to go to the hospital and "get Truett out." Well, finally we did "get him out" and life has been too good ever since.

I don't know who has done more adjusting, us or him, though there's definitely been plenty of adjustments made on both parts. I learned how to survive on less sleep again, the boys learned to watch tv and play video games to the tune of infant wailing, and Daddy has resumed carrying his headphones with him on long, er, all car trips.

But I have to give a little credit to Tru as well for accepting the fact that he is número cuatro in this family, which means nothing he does is a first😞, he wears hand me downs and thrift-store finds, he's already spent a summer with a travel baseball team, and has bruises and scratches that would make most first- time moms hyperventilate.

Today he celebrates his 2nd birthday, his favorite toys, his favorite brother(don't ask which), his blankies, his babies, his baby bed he's learned to escape, and all his other favorites: Coke (don't judge), Alvin and the Chipmunks, cell phones and IPads, swimming, jumping on the trampoline, Daddy, snuggling.

And we celebrate one of our favorite, biggest surprises: Tru K.