Awkward Pauses

I recently had dinner with two male business colleagues who marveled at the fact that I was a stat-spewing football fan and loved The Star Wars trilogy (the original, mind you, not the ones featuring Jar Jar Binks). You would have thought I told them that I was the secret love child of Sid and Nancy by the way they went on and on about it. They told me my husband is the luckiest man in the world.

“What does your husband do?” asked one of them. “He stays at home with the kids,” I replied. The awkward pause seemed to go on for hours in which time one of them decided to hit the chips and salsa and the other one tentatively asked, “How’s that going (read: how did you get him to remove his testicles)?” “Great, I said, he’s really enjoying the opportunity to be there for them.”

Encounters like this occur pretty frequently when I tell men that my husband is a stay-at-home dad. Men act like they’ve just found out that Paul is a Minotaur, followed by an awkward pause and then the inevitable change of subject. For some, it’s like the idea itself is too strange to even contemplate even though the numbers of stay-at-home dads is increasing exponentially.

As Paul’s tenure as primary care giver reaches its third anniversary, it leaves me wondering how our arrangement will be viewed in ten years or even twenty. Will he be part of a growing fraternity of men that will see the lasting impact of the dual benefits of hands-on parenting? Will the pendulum swing resulting in more women wanting to stay home? Who knows? As long as I can continue to come home to safe and happy kids, I will continue to endure these awkward pauses happily.

Hook 'em Horns!

So, some people have accused me of being a crazed Chargers fan. Having spent time in Austin this week, I say you don’t know for super fans until you visit Longhorn country. It’s as if the city has a little bit of burnt orange splashed all over it. Football in Texas is not a spectator sport, it’s a religion and unless you are the converted, don’t even begin to have a conversation with a Longhorns fan about college football.

Having experienced the fanaticism, it got me thinking about whole populations of a city, state or county being rabidly engaged and invested in a football team. I’ve spoken to some who think that sports fans have just lost their marbles, worshiping blindly at the altar of what at the end of the day is a game. I freely admit that there are weekends during the NFL season where I will spend an entire day, in my pajamas no less, watching back-to-back-to-back games. Does it make me feel like a slovenly pig sometimes? Yes. Do I still plan to do it come late August during pre-season football, hell yes!

I’m certain to morph into the next level of scary fan. Maxwell begins football practice next week. He picked up his equipment yesterday, we’re getting him cleats this weekend and I’ve already bought purple paint to get the kids faces game-day ready come September. OK, so that last bit is a lie but I did contemplate it for a moment.

Max is now a Bulldog

I’m not shy about the fact that I’m a big time football fan. I mean, I don’t face paint, wear football jersey’s everyday or have a big blow-up football guy in front of my house during football season (I said I was a fan, not a wing-nut!). That said, I have done the following: organized my travel to accommodate for kick-off times, cried a little (pathetic, I know) when my team (The Chargers!) has lost an important playoff game and bought NFL network premium cable service to be able to watch them on Sundays (I live in Giants country where they never play AFC West teams).

So, it’s not a surprise that my oldest son is a football fan too (and loves the Chargers, much to the chagrin of his Giants/Vikings loving father). He’s wanted to sign-up for football for the past couple of years but I was hesitant because football takes on a whole new meaning when it’s your son playing. Any mother who watched Joe Theisman’s leg snap on live television (as I did) after being sacked by the other L.T. (who, by the way, lost all street cred when he went on Dancing with the Stars) has a whole new perspective on the game of football.

As always, Paul thinks I’m being over-protective. He played football all his life and is over-the-moon that Max is so enthusiastic to play. I’ve suggested Max play tennis, basketball and golf which was met with the reaction of eye-rolling and comments of, “Any sport that allows a kid to wear a sweater during competition is out of the question!” I was on the losing end of this argument from the word go.

So, he’s officially signed up as a Rumson-Fair Haven Bulldog and he starts practice in July. Paul started to explain the equipment that we would have to buy, including a protective cup to which Max said, “I didn’t know you had to wear gas masks to play football.”