Not as much as football

Please catch up on what we've got going on this school year before you keep going!

 

Raising a son with special emotional and developmental needs has always commandeered this blog. I talk about Jake more than Landen. Back here, we're exploring some sort of medical anomaly that I hope to have pieced together like some WebMD Nancy Drew with a great story at the end for how much better Jake feels. On the other end of that spectrum of activity, we have tackle football.

 

Warning: this will make you swoon.

 

 

He's a fifth grader on a team of fifth and sixth graders, and other fifth graders have been playing for two years, so this is Landen's year of learning and we're not expecting much field time. We are, however, expected to truss him up like this and sit in the scorching Louisiana September heat to take pictures like this of our kid, miserable on the sidelines and sweating through three layers of clothing.

 

Fun is had by all.

 

Except, you should be asking yourself, why, in all of the name that is holy, is she doing this, because SHE HATES LAUNDRY and football gets them really gross, every day, from head to toe. So most evenings we are doing this:

 

 

Sometimes I wash them correctly. Sometimes I call it in. Sometimes they get bleach and water. The part where I fall very short is actually remembering to remove them from the washing machine and setting them out to dry, so many a day the boy tries to slide damp football pants on his body. Because I am All Over Sh*t like that.

 

Also, he has to completely undress upon walking in the door, which means I go to bed with my sunroom looking like this:

 

 

Which does not make my a**hole pucker AT ALL because I really love for Landen's sh*t to be strewn about the house, smelling like sweat and feet and farts and making me regret ever saying we would do this and hating him a little bit for enjoying it and hating his father even more that no additional moderately responsible adult is here on a daily basis to deal with all the extra THINGS that have to be properly stored so that one day, before Jake graduates from high school, we can sell this MOTHERFORKING HOUSE.

 

And then, AND THEN, for all the work and yelling and Kraken-ing and shouting "nooooooooooooo!" like I am under physical attack, the Mouth has taken cues from the Ego and is becoming more intolerable by the day.

 

I threatened to run away and sell him on eBay on the same day last week.  

 

When I got to the field to pick him up from practice today, I watched a group of kids on the field, including mine, doing odd stop, drop, and roll-type things. Because the school reports to the Athletic Director when your conduct grades reflect that you are Showing Your A** at school, and you are dealt with on the field.

 

Because MOUTH.

 

 

These are for not bringing materials back, for not following directions, or for talking. Except the one that is playing during Mass and the one that says rude comment, as in, to a teacher.

 

Jesus wept.

 

 

So the boy is now on athletic probation. Another week of Sh*thead Shenanigans gets him benched for a week. A third week extends to him an invitation to no longer be on the team.

 

Text from his dad said "I will kill him." Text from his Aunt Cydney said "Oh noooo." Text from Auntie Amelia asked whether he was still able to draw breath, to which I responded that I was entirely too tired to swing my arms or keep a tight grip.

 

After I properly addressed the seriousness of his behavior and assured myself that he was properly ashamed of himself and sent him upstairs to get ready for bed, I did my own little endzone dance. Because a mother can tell her son every day for months that his behavior is unacceptable, creates disharmony in the house, and causes his brother to warn him often that the Kraken is really going to bring harm upon him, but nothing, NOTHING, can inspire a boy to mend his ways like nearly throwing up on the field because his coach found out he was being an a**hat.