Blog + Therapy = Blogerapy...

Contact drills started last night, for the Tri-C Bullets football team. Their numbers had already dwindled, but I'm curious to see how many casualties (kids that don't show up tonight) after full on tackle practice started. One kid already called it quits. He was unwilling to practice...stretch, you name it. He wanted football on his terms. The coaches didn't see eye to eye with him. He left less than half way through practice. I don't even think he started the tackle drills. His parents wanted him there, no other reason. That was destined to fail. Cole was tired after last night. He was a bit afraid of tackling. I noted, like the coaches did that he stutter stepped before tackling. Contact is something new to him. Aggression as well is new to him. Strangely, he's a big boy, but just hasn't realized it. By the end of practice he was hustling like an old pro though. He was able to bring down some of the best running backs that were there. As well, he was a difficult target to bring down. I get off earlier than usual from work, since I got here at 6:00am, so I'm going to run by Shirt Factory to check out some elbow pads, and gloves for him. Hopefully, to keep him motivated in the right direction. I'm fearful that my mother will talk him out of wanting to play at all. Not that she's vindictive, but she has no interest in him playing. He's being confronted with the same "manipulation" that I was when I was a child. I was never able to participate in sports. I would have liked to, but in her mind, music (particularly classical piano) was more important. My wants...didn't seem to mean much to her. Granted I was good at it, and branched out to the trumpet and finally singing. But now...I do NONE of the above. I slowly began to resent it all. In a way, I wish I were still interested in it, but there for the last few years that I studied piano...I resented it, deeply. When I quit...I made a major break from it. Mom pushed HARD for my daughter to be take piano lessons, in fact she over encouraged it. My daughter, being much more headstrong than I ever was, decided early on that enough was enough. She just wasn't that interested. Frankly mom drove it in the ground for her. She got off easy. Now Cole is doing his sports thing...and I'll never object to him taking up an instrument, but I'll never overly suggest it either. I believe mom would differ. I'm concerned that on days that she watches the kids for us that she will plant the seeds of discontent in Cole with regard to football. She didn't like baseball, and in a way I think she caused problems there too. She also babied him too much. She used to do it to me too. I was in for a rather rude awakening when I went to work for my dad...and had a degree of suffering involved in getting in shape, working on a construction site. Mom jumped on him about it, but finally he summed it up...give me 2 weeks with him...toughening him up, and you won't hear anymore complaints. Well they did begin to stop. Sure, I'd throw in a "he's pickin' on me complaint every once in a while, but for the most part, dad began to turn me into a man. It was probably during that time frame that I developed the backbone enough to quit piano lessons. I think mom gave me the cold shoulder for a few weeks after that. Scathing comments about throwing my "life" away were common for a while. Well maybe I was throwing "a" life away, but it wasn't mine. It was what she wanted, or would have wanted...not me. I feel like I'm bashing her a bit here. Understand me, I love her, she's my mother, but her overzealous interests in any number of things have been inherited by me. To a degree I'm compulsive, a direct result of how she pushed her interests on me.

I really would have liked to have tried sports at some point. Not because I think I would've been a good athlete, but I would liked to have had the opportunity. I think it would have given me a greater sense of self worth and self confidence. Perhaps more of a Can Do attitude, instead of the defeatist attitude that I've struggled under now for several years.
Anyway, back to Cole...and enough of my blog tempered therapy! I'm going to encourage him to tough it out. I'm going to equip him as best I can, and make sure he doesn't get hurt. I hope he'll stick with it, for his own physical well being. Maybe he won't grow up to be the couch potato that I've let myself be lately. But I want it to be about him...and not me. I want him to enjoy it, as an experience in his life. I hope he knows victory...and to a lesser degree defeat as well. I want him to understand that he can't always be the best, even if he tries his best. I hope he comes to learn that there is no shame in losing when you have given it your all. I want him to accomplish things that he never thought possible. I want these things for my daughter as well. I want her to grow from adversity in addition to success. I want the best for both of my children. I don't want it handed to them. I want them both empowered enough to take it for themselves.

Wow, where did that all come from!?!?

Regards,

cheer_dad