Why I’m Tired of Football

My husband and I met in high school. My dad was one of the football coaches and he played on the football team, and then he was in my college algebra and band classes. He was smart and athletic, a perfect combination, right? It was really fun watching him play sports in high school, and exciting watching him play football in college. He's an offensive lineman, and let me tell you, there is nothing better than going into a crowded bar with a group of lineman….you have your own personal blockers and can maneuver through the crowd like butter. I've always watched football, not that I had much choice when your dad is a high school coach and former semi-pro player. My mom jokes that on Sunday's I had a choice, I could either watch football with them or go play by myself. More often than not, I watched with them, and picked up a lot more than most people expect a girl to know. This worked out perfect with my husband because we watched games together, we could talk about his games, and it was fun watching him play. And then he graduated from college…..

The first year he was home, I could see that he wasn't the same during the season, and it made me sad. Then he decided to help coach the junior varsity football team at the high school. I immediately saw a huge difference in him and he loved every minute of it. Well watching football on Sundays turned into Thursday afternoon jv games, Friday night varsity games, watching college games on Saturday, and NFL games on Sunday. Oh, and don't let me forget to include the multiple fantasy football leagues he was in, which required tons of research and the never ending sports shows. The first year wasn't too bad, but after that it got old really quick. Then, just when I thought it couldn't get worse, a friend told him about a local semi-pro team that was looking for players….and how could he resist??? I have to admit, it was a lot of fun watching him play. He had so much fun, and it was pretty exciting to get into again. However, the team played in the spring….so he still coached and watched football during the regular season, and then played after that. Which promptly made football season last from August to May. Lovely.

He stopped coaching because he couldn't work out the hours with his new job, but it didn't stop him from watching football all weekend during the season, and playing in the spring. This continued up until 2010, right before our daughter was born when he decided to stop playing. He stopped playing because he didn't want to take time away from her, and after playing for so many years (at least 15) it was definitely starting to take a toll on his body. It was perfect timing, because I wouldn't have let him play anymore anyway. In their last game, in the playoffs, there was a totally random tragedy. The quarterback threw the ball to a receiver, as he caught the ball he was tackled by a guy from the other team. It was a totally legit tackle, it just so happened to have a bad angle and his helmet hit the guy under his chin. His head flew back, his helmet flew off and he collapsed to the ground. People that watch football know that when someone is hit like that you watch to make sure there is movement on the ground. We saw movement and everyone was relieved, but we all knew it was bad. They made room for a helicopter to land to take him to shock trauma, but he ended up leaving in the ambulance, so we all thought it was a good sign. Wrong. The movement we saw was him having a seizure, and apparently the helicopter can't take people that are having a heart attack because they don't have the right equipment or something.

The next day was my baby shower, a mere 4 weeks before the birth of our daughter. Several of our friends from football were at the shower, and that was when I found out. The player had died. Died. A healthy, hard working, young man died while playing a game. A game that was played just for fun, for entertainment, for social recreation caused someone to die. He had parents, a family, friends, wonderful people that loved him, and he died playing a stupid game. My best friend was a receiver on the team that decided to stop playing that season. I remember being disappointed because I wouldn't see him every weekend at the games. It could have so easily happened to him. This is when I started to see football in a totally different light. People have repeatedly told me it was a random tragedy and that the chances of it happening are so slim, it couldn't possibly happen again. Well that's right, the chances are slim, but it still happened. I still saw it happen, and if you think I would risk seeing it again, you're wrong. I know my husband plays a position that something like that couldn't happen too, but that doesn't mean other things can't happen, and it doesn't mean that I want to risk that, however slim that risk might be.

In addition to being worn out from an 'overdose' of football and witnessing such a tragedy, our daughter was born. That was the final straw. There is nothing more important than her. I'm not going to waste a Sunday watching games. I'm not going to waste brain power or energy trying to follow player stats, or injuries, or who is playing or not. It's just a game. It might be entertaining for some to watch, but after having been exposed to so much of it, it's not that fun anymore. It's a game with serious consequences. People have died, people have been paralyzed, and people suffer long term injuries. There's the whole concussion issue, there's damage done from such rigorous and demanding physical activity and tackling. My husband didn't even play professionally and at the age of 35 has way too many injuries. When he complains I'm never sure which body part hurts. He can't walk through the grocery store without using the cart because his knee starts to hurt or will give out. He constantly sprains his ankle, and most recently he had issues with his shoulder. The issues became so bad that he went to the doctor and found out he has a tear, a cyst, and arthritis in it….and it can only be fixed with surgery. Yay. What scares me the most is that he won't be able to enjoy all of the fun things with our child. To me a game is never worth that, and I wish we would have realized it sooner.

I Swear My Husband is New

I sometimes can't believe that my husband and I have been married for 11 years. Not because it seems like yesterday that we got married, or because we've had such a blast that time just flew by, it's more like I can't believe he still doesn't know or remember things that he clearly should by now. My loving, highly intelligent, kind and generous husband that graduated from an Ivy League college, still acts surprised that I always have to have a plan for the weekend, or well for anything we do, and that I always have to have a place for things because I hate having stuff out on the counters, and that I hate touching things that are wooden (like popsicle sticks), and that I can't open things with my teeth and have to cut them (like icee pops).

Well now that we have a daughter, the same thing is happening. He never remembers where any of her stuff is, he never remembers that she needs a bath at night, and sometimes I'm surprised he remembers she has to eat. Well today was another perfect example. She stopped taking a bottle a little over a year ago, but since she's on the small side, and is often too busy to stop and eat, we make sure she gets her nutrients by giving her one Pediasure drink a day. We fix it at night before she goes to bed, she usually has a few sips, and then when she wakes up in the morning we give her the rest of it. As I stated, this has been the same thing every day for over a year now. Today we had to go buy a new kitchen faucet (I had no idea how expensive those could be!) and we had to get moving pretty early. I asked my husband to get her dressed, of course I had to tell him what she should wear, and I asked him to get her a drink. Before we walked out the door I asked where her drink was and he said she drank half of it and he put it back in the refrigerator. I was a little concerned because she had only a little more than half of one left from the night before, so if she only drank half of that, it probably wouldn't hold her over very long while we were shopping.

So we bought a new faucet and went to lunch and then came home, which by the way, was a deviation from my initial plan L. Anyway, we came home and I went to put her leftover macaroni and cheese away and saw two of her drinks in the top of the refrigerator. I was really confused for a minute until I realized that he didn't give her the rest of last night's drink this morning, he made her a whole new one. Why? What in the world was he thinking? I mean I know it's not a big deal, or any type of malicious behavior, but really? How hard is that? The man can remember things that he was taught when he was 5 and why he was taught them, and by whom. He can remember all kinds of football scores and plays and statistics. But he can't remember that every night we fix her a drink, put the leftovers in the fridge and then get it out the next morning??? Ugh, sometimes I swear my husband must be new.

She Ruins Everything . . . Perfectly

I have always been amazed at my daughters amazing ability to ruin everything I plan, even before she was born! I should have known when we tried to get 3-D images ten times and she wouldn't let us. Once she was born she would always stay on a schedule long enough for me to depend on it and plan around it and then BAM she'd completely change everything and ruin the plans, whether it was a shopping trip, a play date, a doctor's appointment, etc. When she was really little she would randomly decide she needed to eat every two hours, or she would nap all day instead of fighting sleep like normal. She then started napping at different times, or she would be whiny and fussy from teething. The switch to 1 nap a day was great because it allowed me to plan a lot better, and it put her on a much more regular routine for quite a while. Now that I'm not working, of course, a routine isn't as significant, but she's kept to it rather well. There have been several days where she's decided not to nap until 5 pm, or she's napped for about 45 minutes and then wants to nap at 8 pm, but they hadn't really disrupted anything….yet.
Her second birthday is approaching rapidly, and I've decided to try and make as much as possible to save on costs, plus it seems like fun things we can do together. Tuesday was supposed to be yucky and rainy, so I thought it might be a good time to go shopping for supplies, and if all went well we could stop at an indoor playground. Well she woke up really late, was whiny and clingy (she's working on her 2 year molars, yay) I decided it would be much easier just to keep her home and try for Wednesday. Despite not going shopping, we had a nice day at home and I was able to plan a few more craft activities for Father's Day that I thought she would enjoy. She was super cuddly, and I definitely don't mind that now that she's trying so desperately to become "Miss Independent". All in all, it was a nice, yet rainy day.
Our normal routine is that she wakes up at 9, naps from 2 to 4, and then goes to bed at 10. That gives me a nice 5 hour window to get things done in the morning, and it gives her several hours in the evening with dad after he gets home from work. Well, first she woke up late again, she fought me about eating breakfast and then, she wanted to get in the shower. I figured it wouldn't hurt and let her get in, at which point she decided she did not, in fact, want a shower and she quickly jumped out and ran through the house, naked and dripping. After chasing her down and finally getting her dressed she ran back into the bathroom and slipped and hurt her elbow. I have now learned that the only thing that makes a bruised elbow better is a Dora bandage. Then she opened the powder and 'sprinkled' it all over herself and the floor while I was cleaning up the wet bathroom. Once that was cleaned up all I had to do was her hair and we could walk out the door. Waking up at 10:30 had put me way behind schedule, and now it was after 12, but I figured if we grabbed lunch out I could still squeeze in the shopping. Well she tried to run out of the room and when I called her to come back she turned quickly and ran right into the door frame…..hard. There was an instant bump on the forehead and lots of tears. It required a frozen teething ring, which she was supposed to put on the bump, but ended up chewing on instead, and a grape icee pop (that makes any injury better). Once she was all better, she handed me the teething ring and I was able to get her hair done. I looked down and found that the teething ring had cracked and was leaking all over the table….you know, because I needed something else to clean up before we left. So once we were ready to walk out the door it was a little after 1:30 and I had about a half an hour before the little one turned into a pumpkin. We ended up going out to lunch, having a blast, and postponed our shopping trip for the evening.
I decided that we could just leave when she woke up and start shopping then. I arranged to meet my husband at the store and then we could all grab something for dinner while we were out. Well of course she ended up sleeping until after 5:30, and my husband had already left work. She woke up right before he came home and then we all left together. We had a blast shopping for items for her party, she tried on all kinds of birthday hats and tiaras, she played with maracas all around the store, she danced around on the sidewalk outside while I sneaked away to look for items for Father's Day, and we had a lovely dinner together….none of which would have happened if she hadn't decided to change my plans. Normally I always have to have a plan, and a list, and a timeline before I do things, but slowly I'm learning to let go and just go with the flow of things and everything will work out. My daughter is not quite 2 yet and she's already teaching me things, why am I not surprised?

I Got It!

There are so many things my daughter sees and hears that I'm not even aware of. Her language skills are developing so fast I can't even begin to keep up with all of the things she says now. Every now and again she says something that just makes me stop and laugh. I used to wonder where she even learned it from, and then I slowly realized that they are all things that I say without even being aware of it. It started as far back as when she first started saying 'no'. She had this very definitive short way of saying it, where everyone knew that she clearly meant it and there was no changing her mind. It was so funny to hear that out of this cute little face, and we wondered where it came from. Then one day I walked into my bosses office and he asked me a quick question, to which I replied, without any hesitation, a quick, very definite, no. And then it hit me….she learned it from me. I've tried watching everything that I say in front of her, and sadly it's just impossible to catch everything. Luckily for me, she hasn't really picked up anything bad. Most of them are actually rather cute and I thought I'd share some of them.


One of the silliest to me is that I noticed that her yes and no had become okay and nope. For example, she will say "Drink?" I'll say "You need a drink?" and she replies "okay!" She'll randomly say cupcake, and I'll repeat it to make sure that's what she said and she quickly says okay, and then of course I feel obligated to get her one. Oh, the power of suggestion, of course she knows how to use it before the age of two! On the other hand if we now ask her to do something or eat something that she doesn't want she replies with "nope" and that's that. I recognized the nope right away as something that I say, but the okay took a little bit longer. One night my husband was going into the kitchen to get a drink and asked if I wanted ice cream and as soon as I said "Okay!" I knew where she got it from.

Walking through Target one day, we saw a big purple ball that she just had to have. I got it out of the big tall cage and let her carry it around. It was almost as big as she was, and her little arms could barely fit around it, yet she insisted on walking through the store with it. Every once in a while she would drop it and it would start to roll away. The first time it happened she yelled "uh oh" and started to run after it yelling "I got it, I got it, I got it!" until she did, in fact, get it. I heard people around me laughing and all I could do was shake my head and chuckle. Later that week she was reaching for a cup that I knew she was going to spill. I quickly picked it up and said, "Here, I got it," and that's when I realized that I do say it quite often.


She has also learned the use of the word maybe. We were watching one of her favorite shows, Bubble Guppies, one morning right after she woke up. It was about fossils and dinosaurs. They were digging and found a bone that they thought might be a dinosaur bone. My daughter sat up right away and said "dinosaur bone?" I asked, "Do you think they found a dinosaur bone?" and she said "Maybe!" I couldn't help but laugh, and it just makes you realize that they understand way more than we think they do. Just yesterday we were getting our coats on to leave and I asked her if we were going to the park and she said "I think so!" I guess it's only a matter of time before I realize how frequently I say that as well J

The Day I Didn’t Get Anything Done

I must start by saying that I hate cleaning. I love a clean house, but I actually hate cleaning. I think part of it comes from the way I was raised. My mom worked full time and my dad had his own business and worked all the time. Therefore, Saturday's were reserved for cleaning. My mom and I cleaned from top to bottom, while my dad was working. I wasn't allowed to have friends over or go outside until it was done, and it seemed to take forever! Until 2 months ago, I worked full time and I was able to afford the luxury of paying someone to clean once a week. As soon as I was laid off I let her go, as it was an expense we couldn't afford, and if I was home every day, I felt that it was my job to keep the house clean.

My mother in law babysat for us when I was working, and she graciously agreed to babysit once a week for me so that I could have time to clean the house from top to bottom without distractions, little fingers in the way, or additional messes being made simultaneously. Things were going rather well, despite the fact that I absolutely hated every minute of the cleaning, which I somehow managed to drag out long enough to take all day. Then one week my mother in law had a medical emergency and couldn't babysit. So I had to clean the house with a 2 year old around. I made out a plan the night before with my husband. After the little one went to bed we went around and straightened and picked everything up, did dishes and ran the dishwasher. The next day I was going to try to keep her messes to a minimum, do the bathrooms and kitchen while she napped and then when my husband came home I was going to vacuum and mop the floors while he kept her out of the way.

Well despite the child's best efforts I was actually was able to accomplish what I set out to do. I cleaned 3 bathrooms, dusted, emptied the dishwasher, did any remaining dishes, cleaned the kitchen counters, the stove, sink, and table, all the while keeping her toys and play areas contained and the messes minimized. I was so proud of myself and I actually started to think that I could do this often without having to involve my mother in law. I was totally exhausted and I sat down for a little bit before my husband got home. I figured once he got settled, I would hand over the child responsibilities and do the floors. I heard my husband come in and put his stuff down and he walked into the room. He then asked what still had to be done tonight, as he knew that I would need help getting things finished. I was all excited to tell him how much I had accomplished, and I started by saying, "we have to vacuum and mop…" when he cut me off and said, "So you didn't get anything done today?"

 And then I lost it.

Monkey Poop

My 21 month old daughter adores animals of all sorts, from elephants to tarantulas. She even squatted down and said "Hi Bug!" to a stink bug in our living room one day. Needless to say we were very excited to plan her first trip to the zoo. We talked about the animals she might see on our way there, and she was so excited when we finally got there that she ran right through the gate before we even had a chance to pay! She loved each of the exhibits, and several weeks later she's still talking about it. We saw prairie dogs and otters that made her giggle because they swam over her head. We went through a cave with bats, reptiles, spiders and even dinosaur bones that she was scared of, despite loving dinosaurs. They had a farm animal exhibit with cows, chickens and roosters, an owl, a pig, sheep, and goats. It was amusing that she started saying 'cow' before we even saw one, apparently she already recognizes the smell of manure. She not only got to pet each of the goats, but she had to hug them as well of course. They had polar bears and an arctic fox (which she initially thought was a 'cute baby bear' before we corrected her) and tons of birds, the typical giraffe and penguins, a rhino, zebra and elephants, lions, leopards and such and of course the monkeys and chimps.

So it just so happens that as we approach the chimpanzee section, which is outdoors, they were just setting up to feed them. My husband had our daughter on his shoulders and went right up to the window…..as a chimp decided to poop…..and eat it! So the whole crowd starts saying "ewwww" and I, not so smartly, ask what happened. My husband hollers over to me that the monkey pooped. Well we also got to see the chimps eat apples and oranges and drink juice, and they were swinging from tree to tree, and one hit the window and scared people. My daughter will tell you all of this, but of course only after she tells you that the monkey pooped. Did you go to the zoo? Monkey poop. What did you see at the zoo? Money poop. What did the monkey's at the zoo do? Poop. It's also the answer now at home. Did you poopy? Monkey poop. Did the cat poop? Monkey poop. Sometimes she will even mention it randomly. Monkey poop has now become the go to answer for everything. Yay. I wonder how long this will last……

The Times She Makes My Heart Melt

My daughter has definitely hit the terrible two's. At the ripe old age of 21 months, she knows exactly how to push my buttons, and has to test everything we say and do. This is exactly where the name of my blog came from, I used to joke that her first sentence was going to be "you drive me crazy". Just last week I thought she was going to make me lose it. She started taking off her clothes and diaper, colored on the wall, ran off in a store in the mall, and started jumping off of the sofa, among other random acts of defiance typical of a 2 year old. At some point each day I worry that I'm going to end up in a mental hospital. And then somehow, just when I think I can't take it anymore, in one little instant, all of those thoughts, and the stress and frustration just disappear from one little act. Sometimes it's the random times that she runs up, most of the time while I'm cooking on the hot stove that she knows not to be near, and she hugs my leg and says "love you", or the look of excitement on her face when I walk in her room to get her in the morning, but tonight it was when she said thank you for making her nose better LOL.

She's been a little sneezy and congested the past few days. She's acting fine, has no fever, no runny nose or coughing, but just a few extra sneezes and a little bit of stuffiness. We are starting to think that it might just be some allergies. Yesterday before she went to bed we decided to use some nose drops just to help her nose so she could breathe better to sleep. She fought us and got mad when we did it, and we told her we had to, in order to make her nose better. Well right after we finished she said "nose better?" and seemed much happier. Tonight while chasing a naked baby around to finish putting her pajamas on, she looked up at me and said "nose better?" I asked "do you need me to make your nose better?" to which she replied "okay!" Once I started though, she again had a fit and fought me. I finally got the drops in, let her go, and she instantly ran across the room. She suddenly stopped, looked back at me and said "nose better!" She ran back to me, yelled "thank you!" and gave me a big hug….and that's when my heart melted.