LOSING

Jax's 70+ yard touchdown run!!!

I am a firm believer in learning how to play fair, play hard, be a good winner and a better loser.  Unfortunately I didn't know how difficult it would be to comfort a crying 10 year old little boy, or 24 for that matter.  No matter how big my kid is in size, he is still a little boy, who has just had his heart shattered into a million pieces after losing a football game because adults taught children how to cheat and hurt other children.  All Tommy and I could do was hug him and tell him how proud we are of him.  What more can a parent do?

I have never seen little boys go after other little boys like this.  Inmates in a jail yes, little boys? no!  We watched 10 year old little boys try to, and successfully hurt 95% of our boys in one way or another.  Two of our quarterbacks were seriously injured.  One with a possible chip in his hip bone and the other with a possible concussion.  We had boys that had intentional helmet to helmet hits, intentional jumps onto their arms, hands, and even Jax took the intentional jump to his achilles.  Fortunately we have a professional team trainer that loves to run because she was non-stop the entire game.  I laughed when Jax told me that he "accidentally" stepped on the other teams quarterbacks hands... after he took him down during a play.  I must have given him some kind of look because he immediately came back with, "hey, I helped him up after...."  Then I burst out laughing but it didn't take out enough of the sting!!!!

A tough loss yes, but a good lesson that Jax needed.  You see, Jax had never lost a football game.  Somehow, he has always been on the winning end of the clock when it has come to football.  He has lost during soccer and baseball but I honestly think that it didn't matter because he didn't love those sports.  He lives to watch football and learn play.  He respects his coaches and wants to learn.  Baseball and soccer were were just whims but football is his "it" sport..... except for the fact that he has coaches that are trying to talk to him about baseball..   but that is a whole different ballgame all together...................  and blog.............

So.....we move forward to our playoffs with only one questionable loss ....  and the real possiblitly that my son could head to the Arizona State Championship playoff game for the East Valley Junior Pee Wee Division for the Valley.  This could get interesting....  real quick...............................

212 degrees - The Extra Degree

THE KIDDOS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HAS SORT OF TAKEN THIS ONE ON AS THEIR MOTTO THIS YEAR. WE HAD THIS ON OUR BLOG 2 YEARS AGO FOR MOTIVATION IN OUR WORKOUTS. I THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS STILL EXTREMELY APPROPRIATE FOR ALL THE HARD WORK JAX HAS BEEN PUTTING IN ON THE FIELD, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

I half JOKED WITH HIM....... NO MATTER WHAT.. YOU PUSH FOR THE EXTRA DEGREE AND YOU WILL BE AMAZED HOW FAR YOU CAN GO!!!! WE WILL SEE HOW MUCH PRACTICE CHANGES THIS WEEK!!!

Facing the Giants

I was shocked at how amazing this movie was. In the beginning I could tell that Jax was not very into it. It was very "churchy" but Tommy and I told him to listen and to watch and give the words some real consideration.

By the end of the movie, I was in tears, Brinkley was actually liking the whole movie, and Jax.. Jax he "GOT IT!!"

I was so excited when Tommy randomly threw out there, "what do you think the meaning was behind the movie?"

Jax immediately said, "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!"

'nuf said!

Pity Party

Well, truth be told, I had one tonight, and I am so not proud of it. Seriously.

I acted like a kinder having a meltdown and no one really even noticed... seeing as that there was no one here to really notice and the ones still present... were too busy with friends to have any idea anything was going on so I am guessing it was really no big deal.

SWEET!

When I got my "smart phone" I never fathomed all the goodies I would get to do with it. My biggest lifesaver... the emails directly to my phone. I am horrible about checking my home computer email so I have one email that I give out to a select few, to send things directly to my phone..... for important stuff.. you know PORN... I am kidding peeps!

At any rate, the last two weeks have taken its toll and by Thursday, our kinder was beyond melt down. He had hit complete disaster mode and could no longer even function. He stayed home from football with daddy and had an amazing night. Brinkley should have stayed home but I let her come to hang out with the girls, who were not even at practice. She was beat down by practices end. I think the fact that I make her run drills with the boys and at the end, she runs the suicides with the boys as well, just adds to the sheer exhaustion at the nights end.

Today we fell out of bed and laughed at the fact that it is Friday the 13th. Jax keeps repeatedly reminding me that he wants to watch that series of movies. I am pretty sure I was about his age when I started watching them. It will take until he is in high school to even finish them since there are like 897 of them now. The day went beyond smoothly for all of us.

Tommy and I spent some much needed together time at Paradise Bakery having brunch and adult conversation about his new job and the kids and catching up, literally, on the past two months that he has been presently absent for. I am not exaggerating about that at all either. It is so easy to see why cops are amongst the highest divorce rates out there. Most women can't deal with the daily menage a trois of work and family and death and court and dirt bags and phone calls and everyone else's problems and text messages at all hours of the night and blah blah blah. Seriously... people really wonder if I exaggerate that I only sleep 3-4 hours at night... come play with me!!!! You will see. With my boys position at work I always joke, we have taken on 8 new families consisting of 7 wives, 19 children, 7 husbands, many animals, psychiatric problems, scheduling dilemmas that would make your head spin, court dates, conflicting court dates, car issues, blah blah blah. It is all fun and games around here!!! Until someone pulls out one of the cards that is keeping everything balanced and then we are up the creek!!!! But we keep it all together and pretty darn well!! Until I melted down today...

We had a new schedule to deal with for work, and then a new revised football schedule that was going to save some serious family sanity and I was already ready to handle the next two weeks with some serious energy.... until the email hit the phone.

I wanted to fall over. (Going from 5 days a week for the first two weeks to 3 days a week was like snow in summer in Phoenix. We were amped to drop down to that and then we were told there would be no Friday practices due to parks with lights constraints. SWEET. I could handle 2 practices a week for 8 hours gone from the house time frame. I was oozing happy.......) We were switching back to the regular schedule to enhance conditioning and ensure athletic performance.....5 days a week again....4 hours a night. AAAAGGGHHHH! I updated my calendar, which might scare some people to look at right now, sucked it up, did a workout, and got over it. I had to break the news to Jax. It went over like a lead balloon in a kindergarten classroom. We will survive.

Then, while waiting for the house to fill up with every ones friends for our very, very impromptu sleep over... I started watching Dr. Phil. Yeah, I felt like a total D-bag dumb ass for even thinking about a pity party, let alone having one. Of all nights to complain about anything, Dr. Phil has on a couple having marriage strains due to the fact that they are the only couple ever documented with triplets that are blind and deaf. They then explained all their struggles and the scheduling and teaching issues and inability to educate the girls on their own without the help of professional assistance, how the husband felt very inadequate as a father for not being able to fix everything and please his wife and remain completely successful at work. Basically he thought he was slowly failing and the house of cards was falling in around him as he spoke. I choked on ice as he was talking.

Yeah, I have no room to whine or complain, to bitch, moan, or be anywhere near disgruntled. Tired is fine, but I sucked it up and onward we move. We have it good. Seriously. I play single mom more days than not around here, but unlike one of my friends... she lives it. Her husband is preparing to deploy, yet again, to the most dangerous area in the middle east, to continue his job of loading and off-loading the bombs to the bombers and boats and planes to transport them. And by loading them, I mean he readys them to explode. Yeah, who's complaining now? She is single mom more than she is not. Her kids don't know what it is like to have Daddy around more than 30 days a year. Her boy doesn't get extravagant pay nor does he get hazard pay. Damn skippy, that boy keeps all of us safe at night, and day! 'nuff said, I'd say.

And damn skippy, this girl has no right to bitch that she gets to take her kids to football practice at a beautiful green park, in a very expensive Escalade with more t.v.'s in it than most homes, watching 2 of her healthy kids climb tress and laugh and play with new friends while big brother does drill after drill to expand his agility and knowledge of the game, four hours a night all week long. No right to complain at all that I am tired and my house is not spotless and someone left a dirty sock under the dining room table where we never even sit at, let alone take our clothes off at, or the fact that said kiddos have been eating fast food 3 nights a week because it is just to late to cook when we get home and they need to get their tiny tired rear ends into bed.

YEAH, NO WHINING HERE.

It is Friday the 13th here and to celebrate all our good fortune and fun and crazy madness, we opted into a very impromptu sleep over. It all happened so darn fast that I am still wondering exactly how it happened. Happy Friday night!!!

HIS FIRST......

Jax is #25

Jax loves this game. He was devastated when he thought he would be too heavy to play quarterback but was willing to give the line a try. Even after his first week of practice and weighing in under the line limit, he found out quickly that any position that allows him to tackle the quarterback and the running backs... oh who am I kidding..... he likes tackling anyone and everyone so he immediately lost all interest in the offense.

The first games of the season were quite the learning experience. This season runs exactly like the NFL season. They play games but work on the fundamentals of the game in preparation for the fall season. The coaches are actually on the field assisting the boys but need to be clear of all plays and no one is allowed to argue calls with the refs. The league is all about teaching respect for each other and ones own self and I love that any parent that causes problems will be escorted out by security, and will not return. It is huge since come fall season, we will be traveling all over Arizona for these games.

It was so fun sitting in the high school stands watching the boys play... and then getting to hear their names on the loud speaker when they made a good play. I tried so hard to get the videos of Jax's tackles and them announcing his name but..... it just did not work because I was way too slow when he made a good play and the announcer got it out there. Technically speaking, they don't keep track of the wins vs. the losses, but they keep score and stats... and we do know who wins. Jax was so excited that they won their first game and had 6 major tackles during that game. 18-0 was a great way to start the season. They played a second game at 5PM the same day. It started out rough. The quicker kids on his team got a rude awakening about big boys and getting their bells rung. Jax's coach switched the positions around after the purple team scored their first touchdown. He told Jax to "take the big kid down and don't be intimidated"....... Jax goes to school with him so he was excited to go up against someone who is two grades older than him. He rocked this game and they ended up winning 12-6.

Lesson learned.... the bigger they are - the harder they fall.

He even earned his first sak. We are definately gonna enjoy the next few months... even if it entails 4 or 5 practices a week and 2 games on Saturday.

*Just a Mom's bragging side note. Coach Joe's son Jozia celebrated his birthday on Sunday. We went and had a fun filled day. I was such a proud mom when Joe pulled me aside and asked me how Jax was liking playing and practicing. I explained to him that he has fallen head over heels in love with the game. He loves playing defense.. can take or leave the whole offense thing.. but wants to learn learn learn. He was even more excited to find out that we run Jaxi through some Crossfit workouts. It was when Joe told me that Jax is a true natural when it comes to the game, that I got really excited for Jax . Joe explained that Jax listens, learns, and demonstrates what he has been taught. Plus he just does not let anyone get past him.. He finished with, "Jax is just a good boy and I am really glad he is on our team!" That is what makes me proud. That and the fact that he actually stopped to help up anyone he took down on the field and anyone he "might have slightly injured" at his first two games.

I can not wait for your Grammies and Grampies to see you in action!!!!


De Anna