Footballers

As I mentioned on Monday, little man and I spent the weekend at my parent's house. My brother, Ryan (or as we call him, Lambo) and his wife, Kara (or Aunt KK), were in town to visit. My brother, a good K-Stater and Kara, a Sooner, call Texas home, but made the trip up to Kansas to visit family and catch the K-State vs. OU game.

Ryan and Kara are very much that couple. You know the ones - the ones that you know will some day be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Although they don't have any children of their own yet, they were also made to be parents and love children. And little man adores them, as well.

My brother has always been the athletic one of the family. He tried in vain for many years to instill some kind of athletic ability in me, but it was to no avail. Today I justify it as saying that at least my parents had the best of both worlds: not only did they have a son and a daughter, but they also had one athletic golden child and one artsy, creative, definitely not athletic child.

In my baseball game post I briefly touched on this by mentioning that my brother was a great baseball player. However, although I'm sure he must have at least liked baseball to have played it all those years, his true love was always football.

For many, many years Ryan taught high school science classes and coached high school football. Which is how he met Kara, a high school Special Education teacher.

Little man just recently became interested in playing ball. Knowing that this trip was on the horizon I told him all about how his Uncle Lambo could teach him to catch that football just right.

Then that day came. The day when we would see Uncle Lambo and little man would take to the field in what was sure to be an ultimate pigskin match-up.

Lambo vs. Little Man.

But mommy forgot to pack a football.

Fortunately, she and Grammy Jo needed to go to the grocery store anyway. Good thing they also had Nerf footballs.

THEN the moment came. Little man's first football lesson.

{First came the introduction to the football}

{Then the basics of throwing and catching the football}

{And the art of the hand-off}

{Then impatience, an unfortunate by-product of being 2. So, little man simply stole the ball.}

{Game On!}

{Uh-oh. What do I do now? Maybe I should have gotten more lessons, after all.}

{I'll just hide behind this tree then}

{And if that doesn't work, I'll hit him with a stick. Football is a full-contact sport, isn't it?}

{And when I prove too much for Uncle Lambo, he'll send in Aunt KK!}

{She likes to tickle me}

{But I'm a gentleman. So I won't hit her with my stick. Instead I'll kill her with my cuteness.}

{And in the end, there was just one left standing victorious. It was a good game for all.}