The Joys (and Pains) of Motherhood

I love being a mom. I like to spend time with my kids, I enjoy having them around for the summer and spending time doing fun things together. Many a Friday nights turn into family date night instead of me and Leon date night. I prefer to go on vacations as a family instead of just me and Leon, and for the most part my kids have usually always gotten along very well. Shelbs is pretty much perfect - and we are not biased (hahaha) and helps smooth out the crazy boys. Big E is very layed back and very tolerant of younger brothers, Nickster is just so dang stinkin cute that we all adore him. Ry-Guy and Daws in the past have done really good together but this summer has been a different story - They are constantly going at each other, enough to make me crazy and almost wish for school to return so that at least for a portion of the day they are not killing each other!

This last week even made their relationship a little more tense, if that is possible! Football started and the first week is tryout week. In Alta's little league there are two A teams, then a Super B team and then the rest of the teams in each age group. Ry lives, breathes, and eats Football, Daws not so much. Every year Ry is one of the last kids cut from the A team, which he usually handles pretty well. This year seemed to be his year. They did a cut on Thursday night that took the team down to 21 players, Ry was still there so we thought that is it, he made it! - the team in the past has been anywhere from 20-25 players - Then came the last cut down to 20 players and it was Ry that got the boot - poor kid he was pretty down, he thought for sure he had made it this time, but not quite. Thursday night was pretty sad at our house, Ry was feeling pretty sorry for himself.

Daws had also been in tryouts all week, and while I didn't think they had gone great for him, he had done OK. At least he wasn't "dancing" during tryouts, which he did on a regular basis last year during games

Or filling his Football socks with sand while he was waiting his turn - another trick he did last year

So Friday at practice when they announced the A team with only 16 players on it out of the 150-200 or so kids, we were surprised, to say the least, when Daws' name was announced. At first I was so proud of him and excited for him but then the realization of what this would do to his and Ry's already stressed relationship - YIKES!! Friday was tough for Ry to try and be happy for his brother but he did OK and Daws, after many reminders to not brag- especially to Ry, well, he did OK. Hopefully, somehow this will help them get along better, maybe Ry will see that his little brother can do more than just annoy him - at least a mother can hope (and pray) for a miracle!