Real

This past weekend we were in Austin and San Antonio with Zac's baseball team.  Zac's team is not a select team.  The boys all go to school with each other.  They are friends who hang together off the field.  They also play football and basketball together as well as run track.  All that to say, we aren't a travel team. This spring we played a couple of tournaments a month around Dallas.  In June we traveled to College Station for a tournament.  I plan to write more about the baseball tomorrow.

I love to travel with the boys' teams.  We don't do it a lot so it's novel.  But I really love it because of the families that travel with us.  They are real.

We are a rare group of parents, in my humble opinion.  We're all harder on our own kid than the other kids.  When one of us gets on our own kid, another parent chimes "You got this kid.  Come on now.  You can do it".

My boys have been on teams where this was not the case.  I've seen some ugliness at baseball games from parents.  A parent on one of Sam's team regularly complained about Sam within my earshot with no apologies.  So, I appreciate that I'm harder on Zac than anyone else.  I love that we build the boys up to each other.

But what I really love is our on going "my kid's an idiot" game.  It's almost like a contest now.  Who's kid did the dumbest thing today?  I love a good story.  I love to hear them and I love to tell them.  So these little sessions make me super happy.

What makes this all work is that the kids are great kids.  They screw up.  We all do.  But by and large they make good choices, get good grades and are respectful.

It makes me feel not so alone.  It reminds me that we're all in this together.  Everyone's kid's an idiot and good kid all at once.  We'll all get through these teenage years together.  We'll have fun.  There are other people who will love my kid and hold him accountable.  We are not alone.  Because we made the choice to be real.