Moments on a Saturday
Morning
Moments. The ones you wish you could capture forever, but
you know a cell phone shot won’t do, but neither will a fancy camera with settings guaranteed for
clarity. These aren’t that kind of moment.
Moments. The ones when two seven year olds, here for a few
hours on a Saturday morning while Mommy and Daddy run in the Halloween Fun Run, burst into the house, open their equipment bags and educate their aging grandma about special padded
underwear to wear over their regular underwear when playing football. And you
find out that one wears a size “large” helmet, and the other a “medium”, even
though you already knew it. But you pretend you just heard it for the first
time.
The jerseys. The football pants. Santa brought some of it
last year. Everything carefully described, purpose explained, one boy at a
time. Owen first, then Ethan. “You already saw Owen’s, but here’s what mine looks like, Grandma.”
The special sweat towel from a Halloween Gopher game last
year, which Owen chose to use today, because it’s nearly Halloween. The neck
gator Ethan explains that somebody lost at a Gopher game, and Daddy found it and
washed it and here’s how you wear it, Grandma.
Owen chooses just the right University of Minnesota M from
online images, I print copies. The boys cut them out to tape to the sides of
their helmets, Ethan’s carefully lined in yellow-gold marker. He asks Owen, who
will be playing for Minnesota, if it’s okay to wear an M too. Owen tells his
brother that he can be Michigan, because the M looks almost the same. A sad
look from Ethan, who asks permission to be a team that doesn’t start with M,
but he’ll make it start with one. Minnesota Rutgers. Owen, in a generous mood,
agrees to it.
Moments. While Ethan finishes up his taping, Owen runs in to the
sun room because, “I want to snuggle with Grandpa for a few minutes." And he does, much to Grandpa's delight. I can almost hear Grandpa's thoughts, hoping moments like these continue for a while, that big boys stay little a bit longer. A lot longer.
Moments. E and O hurry off to put on their gear. They grab Grandpa, their kicker ("Come on, old man!), and go out to the front yard football
field. Let the games begin.
Draft 10/30/16
There are moments like these with each of the six little cousins that I wish were written in words and saved in pictures.
There are moments like these with each of the six little cousins that I wish were written in words and saved in pictures.
