Pigskin, shmig-skin

This morning we signed D up for football. Tackle football. He is incredibly excited and I have mixed emotions. I detest most of those football guys, but it may be a good experience for him. His coach seemed like a nice guy from the short time we talked to him.
I really did everything I could to steer D away from football and towards soccer. Unfortunately, his soccer team has been a bit of a dud. They lose all the time, don't work very well as a team, most of the kids are kinda lumps and generally don't work very hard when they bother to show up at all. Not much competition for the shiny allure of *FOOTBALL* - with all its macho gear and toughness. I don't know if D is up for all the work involved, though. He is the kid who always cuts corners when running laps. Maybe he will be motivated for this, though, since he has been asking to play since I got him.

Educational? Rap?!?

One of the hard things about being D's mom is helping him with his schoolwork. I cannot quite put my finger on what his exact issues are, but he struggles. Another dilemma that I sometimes wrestle with is choice of music. As a fan of hip hop, I want to be able to share that with him, but as his mother, I want to shield him from a lot of the language, violence, sexism, etc. At least as long as I can.
Enter Mr. Duey. He is a middle school teacher who has created a really amazing album of educational rap. And it's good! I heard an interview with him on the radio today, and I ordered 2 CDs tonight. One for us, and maybe the other one for D's school. Not sure yet, but I was just so impressed that I needed to buy an extra copy. I can't wait 'til it gets here!

Whew!

Mom's home finally. D and I got to see her on Sunday, and she looked pretty rough but I felt better after that. She came home Monday and a visiting nurse came today already to see her. I talked to her tonight and she sounded almost like herself. Not "droggy" as my dad kept saying all week. That's the new word to come out of all this. Presumably it's a melding of drugged and groggy, but I haven't called him on his creative use of the language yet.

Another big sigh of relief for our incredible luck in getting the baseball coach of D's team. He is a great guy. And all the helper dads are too. They are so relaxed and encouraging and still teach the kids SO much. They had their first game last night and stomped the other team. D really had fun for the couple of innings that he was able to play. We had to leave in the middle to go to an appointment. Being the fashion plate that he is, though, he was very happy to wear his uniform to see the Dr. and his therapist and had his little chest all puffed out like a rooster. He is really cute in it, for sure, but I suppose I'm biased.

Mom is still in the hospital after a whole week. She does not want visitors or to talk or watch tv or read.