A night of soccer with Ryan

One thing that most people know about me is that I love soccer. I played most of my life (with a few years off here and there for a variety of reasons), I coached for 7 or 8 years at the high school level, I play on an over 30 team, and I plan on coaching my sons Muppet soccer team in the fall. I stopped coaching high school due to the time requirement and I have been totally happy with the decision. However, sometimes I totally miss it. One of the things I miss is getting to see a different side of the students I teach. It is almost impossible to connect with students in the classroom in the same way that you connect on the practice field.

The other night I had a chance to take my son, Ryan, to watch the old Mustangs battle it out for the regional championship against the Vikings, a team that, to be honest, was their superior in almost every way. Ryan doesn't do well with sitting around and he kept asking me when he could go on the field and run.

"When can I run, dad?"

"Not right now. In a little while."

Ryan sat there vibrating in his seat for about 7 seconds. He turned and looked at me, pleading. "How about now?"

"Not yet. In about 20 minutes you can run."

This conversation repeated itself about 5 more times, and then the Mustangs, against the run of play, put one in the back of the net. The game now stood at 1-0 with about 15 minutes left in the first half. The rest of the half passed uneventfully and at halftime, we proceeded to run around the base of the stands for the entire time. We played Follow-the-Leader which basically consisted of Ryan running as fast as he could while I trailed behind trying to keep up. This kid of mine has limitless energy. One of the things that made this a little wierd were all of my current and former students who were cheering us on. Oh well. It is good for them to see that I can do more than just tell stories and occasionally teach them some biology.

The second half began and proceeded in much the same manner as the first, only with the Vikings pressing even harder and the Mustang defense working that much more to maintain their slim lead. With about 5 minutes to go in the game, a poor clearance on a corner kick saw the ball pop out to a Viking player who hit a 20 yard shot into the upper corner making the score 1-1. A few minutes later the buzzer sounded and the game went into "golden-goal" overtime.

At this point in the game, Ryan was getting a bit cold and began arguing that we needed to leave so we could go get ice cream and warm up. I pointed out the flaw in his logic, and he simply repeated his position louder and with more jumping up and down. I told him that we had to wait until the game was finished before we could go, and he reluctantly agreed that he did, in fact, want to see the end. So with that discussion at an end, the first period of overtime began.

It wasn't long before an injury to one of the Mustangs put a stop to the action. This injury was serious enough to require the assistance of an ambulance, and Ryan had a bunch of questions.

"Why is that girl lying in the ground?"

"Well, she seems to have gotten injured," I replied.

"What does 'injured' mean?"

"It means that she got hurt. Someone pushed her over."

He looked at me, a bit puzzled. "Why would someone push her over? That isn't nice."

"No," I said. "It isn't nice. But sometimes that is how the game is played. Two people going for the ball don't always agree on which of them should have the right to get it."

"You mean like when Ethan has my ball and I want it back so I push him over or hit him and take it from him?" he asks, seemingly oblivious to the what he just admitted to doing.

"Yes. Like that. Only you shouldn't do that to your brother. Unless you two are both playing soccer and you are both going for the same ball. Then it is ok. Except if you are playing for fun in the backyard, then it is not ok. But if he has the ball and is dribbling it, go ahead and take it. Except that he is not even 2 yet, so always be nice to him." Man, this parenting thing is hard.

"Ok. Well, why is she going into the ambulance?"

Not really thinking it through, I said "Well, the ambulance takes care of people when things are wrong with them. Remember when mommy had to go in the ambulance when she was gonna have Ethan?"

"Yeah...OH! So the girl got pushed over and now she is going to have a baby?"

I busted out laughing. "NO! She isn't going to have a baby!" At this point, some of the fans are looking at us a little funny. "She is not going to have a baby. She probably hurt her leg and the people in the ambulance will take care of her until they get her to the hospital."

"Oh," he said, slightly disappointed. "So no baby?"

"Nope."

"Just a hurt leg."

"Yes," I said, thankful that we were done with the baby talk.

After a few more minutes, the game got undeway and the first overtime period ended with no one scoring. The second one began and right away, unfortunately, one of our girls made a bad tackle in the penalty box which resulted in a penalty kick for the Vikings. Our goalkeeper got a hand to it, but it wasn't enough to stop it from going in and the game ended in a 2-1 defeat.

It was an unfortunate way to end the season, but the girls put in a great effort and Ryan got to learn that ambulances are sometimes good for things other than childbirth.

You want to do what with that bird?

I have found that there are some things about my boys that are predictable.  That they will wake up between 6 and 6:30 on most days, that Ryan won't eat whatever we have prepared for dinner, and that Ethan will quite literally eat anything we put in front of him are things that you should bet on.  Also, like clockwork, if Ethan sees a car he will immediately point and say "CAR!" over and over again.  He is incredibly excited about each and every car he sees and wants to share his love of all things automotive with each and every person within earshot.  "Daddy!  Car!  Mommy!  Car!  Ryan!  CAR CAR CAR!!!"

One thing that I would never have predicted involved Ryan and a robin.  We got home last night around 6:15 after fighting traffic for almost an hour.  We had been discussing dinner and I had been messing with him, as per usual.  

"So, Ryan.  How do you feel about chili tonight?"

"No.  No chili ever," he said.  "I'll never eat chili."

"How about chicken?"

"No.  I'll hate chicken for twenty-hundred years."  

"Wow.  That is some profound hatred for chicken.  How about squirrel?"

"No, dad," he said, exasperated.  "No wierd dinners with animals in them."

"No animals at all?  Not even a penguin?"

"No!  I won't ever eat animals, especially not penguins!"

Eventyally we got home and he immediately unbuckled his seatbelt, jumped out of the car and took off running around our front yard.  This is nothing new since he typically has enough energy to power a small country, but what was unusual was the reason for his running.

I looked up to see him hiding behind a tree, glancing around the side like he was stalking something.  I asked, "Ryan?  What are you doing?"

"Trying to catch a bird," he replied in a whisper.  "Shhhhhh."

"Oh," I whispered back.  "Which bird?"

He pointed to a robin about 10 feet away.  "That one.  He looks good."

"Birdy!" yelled Ethan, pointing.  "Tweet!  Tweet!"

Ryan turned quickly to Ethan.  "Shhhhhh!"  

"Birdy," Ethan said again, more quietly.  "Tweet."

"Ryan?  What do you mean that it 'looks good'," I asked, slighlty confused.

Ryan snuck out from behind the tree and walked a little closer to the bird.  "It looks good to eat.  I want you to cook it."

"You want to catch a bird so I can cook it?" I asked incredulously.  "You don't even like chicken.  If I recall correctly, you won't eat chicken for twenty-hundred years.  What makes you think you'll like robin?"

"I don't know, I just want to eat it."

Great.  My son has gone from vegetarian animal lover to Ted Nugent in the span of ten minutes.  "I'm not going to cook a robin."

He looked at me for a second, smiled, said "ok", and then ran up to the front door.  I've been thinking about it a bit and I am still not sure if he was messing with me.  Part of me hopes that he was because that would mean that he is developing quite a sense of humor.  However a bigger part of me hopes that he wasn't because, quite frankly, I am not sure I can put up with that kind of crap for the rest of my life.  He's just going to get better at it.

I don't know where he gets this stuff.