Ever Seen a Child do a 180?

Sep

3rd

Ever Seen a Child do a 180?

Filed under Father | Posted by Saphrym

This all started a couple of weeks ago. My daughter mentioned something about flag football. She was interested in it. Well, after some research I found out my wife had thrown away the flyer for it so I told my daughter to get a new one from the teacher.

“We need to let her try at least. It’s only flag football. Why did you throw it away?” I asked.

“Because it was football,” my wife said as if that explained everything.

Now, I’m not a sports guy. I like playing basketball and racquetball for fun. But watching it? That’s like watching someone else have fun. I can’t stand it and just don’t get any enjoyment out of it. I say this to tell you that I’m not “pushing” my daughter to do a sport. This was all her idea. Nicole wanted to try flag football. I don’t see the harm in it myself. I figure she can try it and then choose whether to continue or not.

Let’s fast forward to this past Thursday. It’s her first football practice. We’re sitting on the porch and she’s smiling at me in that “I’m so cute you can’t stand it” way while waiting for us to leave to go to her first practice. She’s very excited. We had to catch a ride with a friend because my wife had the van, so we get in his car when he pulls up and take off for the adventure. My wife has made it to the YMCA before we do.

“Mommy! You’re here!”

And with that, we walk around the corner of the building. As we get closer to the field they practice on, something occurs to me, and seems to occur to Nicole at the same time. Without missing a beat, Nicole does a complete 180 degree turn and walks right into my stomach and clenches. See, the thing we both noticed was that the field was full of, oh my gosh, BOYS! Now, I expected this, although I did think there’d be more girls, but no, there were NO other girls on the field.

After some talking with her coach (who let his daughter practice with them just to appease my daughter) and a little time passes by when one single other girl shows up to play for another of the four teams, Nicole finally decides to continue with her exploration into flag football. No, we didn’t force her, but with the excitement she had only moments before seeing all boys on the field, we knew that if she didn’t at least try it that day she’d be every upset with herself later. That’s a benefit of having actually been children ourselves at one time. And guess what? She loved it. She had fun and can’t wait until this coming Wednesday when she gets to play in a game. Now if only she could throw the ball. We’ll have to work on that.