Soccer Masterpiece

I finally have an excuse for not blogging as much: school. School whether it be volunteering at the boys school or more importantly my own higher education. School is consuming most of my life right now. Sure I work, have a family, my boys, my beautiful bride, soccer, and scouts but school is the center of my universe. So when I have time to blog, my idea maker is too full of business management, science and (shudder) macroeconomics to be (or attempt to be) witty in a blog post. I really do hope to sit down in some spare time to write more but I cannot promise anything.

Tonight I was inspired to write, not because of laundry or Lego’s but my muse Connor had another Connorism that I had to share. Connor has never really been into sports. Sure he goes to football games and baseball games but he is bored fast. Finally this year I took him to a Jazz game and he loved it. Took him to a RSL game and he loved it. He’s tried to play basketball before (he used the wristbands as a communicator to call Buzz Light-year and Star Command) and T-ball (he was the kid picking grass and chasing butterflies) but he didn’t enjoy it. For some reason this fall he really started to get into soccer. He wanted to watch it on TV, wanted to play it, started an infatuation with Manchester United and it’s great because he is finding himself in something he loves. Not what I like, not what his older brother likes but something that is all him. He looks the part already:

 

Headband, check. Long flowing hair, check. He wants to be a goalie all the time and enjoys it. His only issue is long desire to pass the ball every time he gets the ball. No matter the situation he always wants to pass. That changed tonight for some reason. A switch went off. He was charging the ball. Bumping other kids off the dribble. He had two breakaways and barely missed both times. He was a boy possessed. IT WAS AWESOME! He may not be the best ever on his team but who cares. He is loving something that is HIM! We couldn’t be prouder.

All of this brings me to tonight’s Connorism. On the way home we were talking about the game. I told him to be proud that he played the whole game and it was ok to be tired since his whole team played the whole game, due to being shorthanded. He asked if he needed to take his cleats off before he went to his room. Yes was the answer. Should he take his socks off downstairs? No those take off in his room, I replied. His answer: “Papa you just want my socks off upstairs so you don’t have to smell the masterpiece stink of my soccer socks.” While I was laughing, it suddenly came to me that he was absolutely correct. Masterpiece would not have been the adjective that I used to describe them but hey, to each his own. What is it about boy’s feet that make them smell like a garbage dumpster filled with fish that has been set on fire (I’ll pause here to let that narrative sink in)? I don’t have girls, and thanks to science I never will, so I don’t know if their feet smell just as bad at this age. I know mine did (and if you ask Mandy, she’ll say they still do) at their age. If my brothers and I were half as bad back then, I apologize to my mother.