Football night in America

I just don't know what it is about that ball.  That football.  Football is America's sport.

It's almost funny.  Our government might just shut down in a few days.  Today, for just a few hours,  I forgot about all that.  I was (am) stressed about the possibility of missing a mortgage payment.  The hubs and I, we take great pride in our credit score.  Eight years now we've been paying the mortgage - more that what is due and continually on time.  Congress is confused, so it would seem - but we're not.  We know what matters.

Russell Wilson matters.  Every play we're Russellin.

Today I thank God for football and the Seattle Seahawks.  They gave us a reprieve from the daily concerns, the constant fear and worry over what the future may hold.  Watching the Seattle Seahawks today we forgot...for a minute, about the fears of the future.

I don't know what it is about football. Honestly does it really matter?  I found myself - literally - jumping up and down, yelling and clapping my hands in the middle of my living room today.  It was fantastic.  I was...for a moment...nothing more than a fan.

We all need to just stop our lives every now and then, and become simply a fan.  It was so funny, Paige's friend heard us yelling our heads off and came to the sliding glass door only to laugh at us.  He's probably 10 years old.  He giggled, made a pump fake action and said through the glass..."Football?".  I said "FOOTBALL!  GO SEAHAWKS!".  He laughed and said "I play tackle!".  Good for you kid.  You go play tackle.  3rd grade?  4th maybe?  No matter.  He has a love...it's called football.  He plays tackle, and he'll tell you so.

I think football is the only thing we have here in America...the only thing that we can count on.  The only constant.  Yeah yeah there's baseball (how about Mariano Rivera...what a freaking winner!) but football - football is America's sport.  I'm grateful for the chance that I am given, once a week, to just SHUT UP.  Shut up the computer, shut down the phone, shut off the smartphone and become absorbed in the game.  For 15 minutes, times four...I'm enraptured.  I'm crazy.  I'm a fool, freak, Seahawk fan...and it feels AMAZING.

I love my Hawks.

I love to let go.

I'm a lucky lucky girl.  I'll take what I can get.  Sorry Schaub...you did your best.  You just can't beat the 12th man.

Every play we're Russellin...

MUAH!!

#GOHAWKS

Becca...and the dirty dawg.

Sooooo, my five year old is in week three of Kindergarten, Thursday is library day.  James loves library day.  Last week was his first week - he brought home a non-fiction book all about Uranus.  I read it to him before bed last Thursday.  I don't know what it is about that planet - but it's just an awkward read.  Maybe if I could just figure out the proper pronunciation it would have been easier to get through.  But I still glided through it with grace.  Or not.  At least not in my own head.  Whatever.  He was blind to anything remotely awkward, because he loves his mother and truly I can do no wrong.

It really feels good to have someone in whose eyes you can do no wrong.  

It's a most phenomenal feeling.

Well TODAY was library day.  I didn't get a chance to check out what book he brought home because immediately after school was a dental appointment for Paige that truly turned into a genuine crisis for her of epically terrifying proportions.  She has a tooth that has been bothering her.  It has a cavity, and they wanted to pull it.  What a freaking ridiculously awful experience.  Through no fault of the dentist, it was just Paige, genuinely scared and working herself up beyond the point of no return.  Let's just say...laughing gas didn't make her laugh, and she didn't wind up having the tooth pulled after all.  They sent me home with Tylenol w/ codeine for her.  REALLY?  CODEINE?  I mean, I appreciate that none of us want to see her in pain.  And they clarified it was only for bedtime.  But tonight at an hour before bed I said "Hey Paige how's your tooth?"  she said "Fine - at least it's not numb anymore!".  So yeah - no codeine for you, kiddo.  I'll hang onto it, it's possible the tooth will get worse before it falls out on it's own  (it's a baby tooth luckily) but might be nice to have the high velocity pain killer in my back pocket.  

SOOOOOOO - came home from the dental appointment and it was 4:45.  James had 2 days of homework to complete, Paige had to finish today's.  Tomorrow is Friday so really there was no more room to wiggle in regards to the homework situation.  It is now DUE.  

I frantically set to work to get all the workings of taco Thursday in order.  It wasn't until just before dinner, as I was putting James' completed homework into his homework folder, that I reached into his backpack and had a fantastic flashback to my younger years.

It was truly FANTASTIC.

He had checked out "No Roses for Harry".

 

I squealed LOL - it was technically Don's turn to read to James tonight but I absolutely vetoed that whole situation.

 

When I was a kid, this was one of my favorite books of ALL TIME.  I love Harry the dirty dog - and James actually owns the original "Harry the Dirty Dog" book.  Thanks to me, the mom who can do no wrong.

I had a hell of a day.  Dealt with housecleaning, a work messup that I had to fix, was a bit blindsided with a right hook to the heart by a family member...and then the dentist thing with my poor girl Paige.  

Tonight, I needed Harry.  I needed my Zilla man and my Harry the Dirty Dog.

Laying there reading this book to James tonight before bed, I was happy.  I was relaxed, I was with my number one boy, and I was transformed back to the time when all that mattered was Harry and that ugly sweater from Grandma.  It helped me remember how important perspective really is.  

Sometimes, we feel like we just can't pull off whatever the right next move

is.
Sometimes, we feel like we've made too many wrong last moves to ever set

the future on a proper course.

A moment of peace with an innocent child that loves us...puts a questionable day back on track.  It did for me, anyways.  I am me, I pretend for noone.  I hide nothing.  I am who I am.  Love it or leave it.  Luckily those that matter most to me love it.  It just took a bedtime story to remember what matters most.

Thank you Lord, for the family I've been blessed with.  Every last one of them.  They have so much to teach, and I still have so much to learn.