It's Time to Face the Inevitable.

My husband and I usually do our catching up for the day at night after the kids go to bed (sound familiar). Tonight we had a discussion about an observation he'd made during the day about our son, Jack.

Jack has been begging us for quite some time to let him play football. My husband and I are of the opinion that contact football at this age is a little young, and had wanted to wait for contact until junior high. Jack kept begging and begging, so we came to a compromise: Upward Flag Football. Jack can play flag football until he's in junior high, so he can learn the game but without the chance he'd break his bones. Because he's never played before, we decided to let him participate in the football camp they provided. He has thoroughly enjoyed it.

As parents, we've tried to encourage our kids to play any sport they wanted (within reason) in order to give them idea of what they might eventually be interested in. Jack loves golf, and his sister loves dance. We figure one more sport each, and that will be as much as we can handle scheduling wise. As with past sports that Jack has tried he hasn't been as enthusiastic in talking about them as he has with football. If you asked, "So Jack how was soccer practice today?" You might get the response, "Fine." or "Good." But ask him how football camp went and you will get a blow by blow recap of the entire 3 1/2 hours.

Jack is build just like his Pa. And in high school and college, his Pa was a force to be reckoned with. So it is no surprise that when we go out, people who meet Jack for the first time usually have comments like, "Looks like you've got a linebacker on your hands." He's in second grade and 4 inches short of 5 feet tall, and deep chested. So, there's a part of me that hopes that he'll like to watch football, but it comes to the contact he won't like it and quit. But then there's the tiny voice in my head that says, "Don't count on it."