Light Refreshments Served

I’m not a very good soccer mom.  I do have a really awesome dented mini van and I recently bought a couple of those fold-up outdoor, camping, sports-watching chairs, but I’m not really good at being that “sports enthusiast” my son needs.  Aren’t I a big person for admitting that?  It counts for something, right?   Owen (8) is the odd man out, I’m afraid, in our family because he loves sporty things.  Like watching sports and playing sports and baseball hats and Gatorade.  I have a really soft spot in my heart for him not only because he’s my son, of course, but because he’s so sweet and nurturing and undemanding.  He just happens to loves sports, and it’s really not that much to ask (I remind myself).

Topher was (is?) the odd man out in his family.  He is the only one of his five brothers who doesn’t like sports.  He was the only one (of 9 kids) who was ecstatic when the family got a baby grand piano for Christmas, while the other brothers were wishing (expecting) four-wheelers.  He’s the one who took piano lessons and read Shakespeare plays in the summer when his brothers were “shooting hoops,” or “going hunting” (that’s a sport, right?)  It’s not like they didn’t play together.  Topher played along when his big brother lined up the neighborhood kids in order to jump over them with his motocycle, because he needed someone he was related to to be on the very end, you know, just in case.  What’s that?  The family’s all going fishing?  Well, Topher can’t go anyway.  He’s rehearsing a play.  But please don’t send me emails fretting about his masculinity.  Believe me:  He’s ALL MAN.

Side note:  Have you noticed I refer to all things athletic as “sports.”  I say it with the same all-inclusive smug generalization as others use the term “drama.”  ”Oh, What does Topher do?  Is he still teaching DRAMA?”  No, DRAMA is not the same as acting, or directing, but it’s close enough, so,  whatever.  I’m sure you’d ask the BYU Basketball coach (I don’t even know his name–doesn’t that illustrate enough?!) if he’s still “teaching sports?”  Yes, I know you so well.

Owen gets those Parks and Recreation Forms in the mail or at school advertising the next sport offering and he receives them like a golden ticket.  He pleads for me to sign him up, and I do.

Owen played baseball last year, and when he made his first home run I was so excited because something actually happened. I’m usually so bored because I don’t understand the game and I don’t know what’s going on, and most of the kids don’t, either, in my defense.  So he made a homerun and in my excitement I forgot what you’re supposed to yell (I’m not, ironically, a yeller at sporting events.  When parents are yelling at their kids during a game it makes me really uncomfortable.  I think it’s because I’m worried they’ll get distracted or something.  You don’t yell at movies, tv, plays, or while reading a book.) So I yelled, “YEAH OWEN!  WAY TO MAKE A GOAL!. . no, that isn’t  right. . . a, it’s not a basket, it’s. . . WAY TO GO!”  A nice, older mother tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Owen’s really good!  And he’s a sweetheart.  Oh, and, it’s called a run.”  I must remember to write these things down:  bring water bottle, bring chair or blanket (it’s longer than you think!), snacks, and it’s call “a run.”

I try to remember how Topher’s mother and father sent him to the expensive piano lessons when he really caught onto it, how they bought that big piano, encouraged him to take summer theater workshops with his sister, and how excited they were for him when he earned a theater scholarship.  They must have seen that his heart wasn’t into pee-wee baseball but, still, it must have been a little weird to see him dressed in silk MC Hammer pants as the King in his high school production of The King and I.  I know my mother was a little taken back when she met him for the first time dressed in pink and white striped tights and in pancake make-up.  I try to keep a visual of that moment in my mind when I sign Owen up for wrestling, because if you’ve ever walked into a wrestling room, you know it’s a hot, misty sauna of warm armpit sweat.