Life Lessons from (Old Man) Football

I think as parents we all want to teach our kids important life lessons. We want to try and leave lasting impressions upon them. One thing I’ve learned in my short time as a parent is that many times the most important lessons are those taught through experience and that happen naturally.

I recently had an opportunity to do something that I think was pretty cool – to some it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. To others, It was probably down right stupid. I was able to play in an alumni football game – full pads, full contact, full speed. Well, as full speed as some of us old guys could muster up anyway.  I have to remind you I’m 37 years old! Crazy thing is, I wasn’t the oldest one out there.  Now I heard every excuse from classmates there is – and I won’t out anybody about their reasons for not playing. Some were down right comical; some did seem legit. But what was the reason I could not let this pass me by?

Regret.

I knew if I had not at least tried to play in that game I would have regretted it probably for the rest of my life. This is where the lesson for my girls and soon to be boy comes in. I don’t want them to look at things and not do them just because they may be too hard only to regret it later.  Now granted, I was no super star out there on the football field that night, but I took the opportunity that was given to me and enjoyed every minute of it. I had fun. My family and friends got to see me play football – my wife and kids for the first time. I hope they can look back on their crazy old dad playing in the mud that night and be inspired to do something big one day too!

Simple Question, Not Simple Answer

The other day Maddy and I were going through our normal routine getting ready for school.  She mentioned something about me being a little boy and I remembered having a picture on my facebook account so I pulled it up to show her.

Maddy being Maddy decided she wanted to look at the other pictures and ran across this old sonogram picture.  She looked up at me and asked such a simple question, but I didn’t have a simple answer for her.

“Who’s that baby, daddy? Who is that?”

At first, I thought it was one of hers I had used as my profile picture.  Then I noticed the date – 3/18/09.  This was one of the babies Liz miscarried. 

Her little eyes kept looking at the picture and looking at me, wanting to know.  I couldn’t answer her.  All I could say was it was some other baby.  I wanted to tell her.  I wanted to tell her everything.  I couldn’t fight back the tears either.

Liz and I have talked about having the conversation with the girls about the babies we’ve lost – mainly if we’d tell them.  There wasn’t much discussion there.  We’re pretty open about it so we want them to know.  Just today as I was giving Liz her heparin shot she asked, should we have been doing this in front of the girls?  I just looked at her and asked – would we have done it any other way?  They know momma needs the shot for the baby and both know she needed them when they were in her tummy too. I’m sure it’s a bit too much for a 3 year old and a 2 year old to comprehend as would a conversation about a baby we don’t have at home with us, but it’s us I guess you could say.  One day we’ll tell them about the other babies.

I’m sure some people think that is strange.  I’m sure some may think it even strange to still have that strong of an attachment – I’m not sure I realized it until she asked that morning.  For me anyway, those loses will always be a part of us.  Sure, we’ve moved on, but as odd as it may sound our girls and baby on the way are a reminder of them.  Had it not been for those losses, they wouldn’t be here.

Hopefully, the next time she happens to run across a random sonogram picture I’ll be prepared with an answer.  Or maybe I won’t.  Maybe we’ll just sit and cry together.

The Story of Us…Becomes A Trio

Not a post that I really expected to be writing!  My wife just found out the other day that she is expecting again!  This will be baby #3 (or 8, depending on how we’re counting…and if you’ve read my other posts) and I’ve found it very comical that in the same week that we found out this news this picture began surfacing on Facebook – rather fiting I thought.

Liz and I have talked about the possibility of a third child for a while, but never really but any deep thought into, I guess you could say.  We were happy with our two girls and were just gonna leave it at that.  Well, we got a surprise!

Things are still very early.  My wife will go to the doctor this Tuesday for an ultrasound and some bloodwork.  She will just be 6 weeks at this point, and yes, everyone knows.  I know that goes against everything – tradition, logic, etc. – but we’ve never been good at keeping secrets and we’ve always wanted to prayers and support of everyone around us due to the problems we’ve had in the past. 

So all of that has started again as well – the shots, the medications, and of course the worry.  Days already seem to be creeping by.  We are still in a bit of shock, but our brains are running wide open with things too. 

I know each pregnancy is different, but this one is a bit more different for us because we have two other kids now and our oldest has a little better idea of what is going on.  She was only 11 months old when we got surprised with her sister.  It seems her brain has been running too fast since we told her as well.  When is the baby coming has already been asked a couple hundred times in the last few days!  It has been sweet though hearing here talk about, “when my other sister gets here”. 

I haven’t been able to convince her of the possibility that it could be a little brother!