Who Won The Draft and Blood-Sucking Animals

And there it was. A break from real life; a break from the hard life. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this was real life and all the other, you know, “stuff” isn’t real at all; just an unfortunate distraction. Whatever, whichever, it was a break in my thought pattern and a welcome one.


We picked up Coulter’s friend; Coulter’s friend whose dad helps coach basketball and football and knows, well lots of sports stuff. Coulter’s friend, who knows what ESPN is and the difference between college sports and professional sports. This is all stuff that we don’t know.

Immediately he starts talking.

“Coulter!” What did you think about “So and So Such and Such” moving from the Sox to the other Sox.”

Coulter plays it cool. He has a mom who watches the Razorbacks. That’s it. If they’re not playing, there’s no need to be watching. Coulter is clueless.

C: “Wow! What happened?”

Friend: “Dude! He moved from the Red Sox to the White Sox and he wasn’t doing to so hot, but now he’s doing great.”

C: “Wow. Uhm, yeah. Cool”

I feel his pain. He doesn’t want his friend to know that they might as well be talking about chemistry. In fact, Coulter probably knows more about chemistry than either Sox. So I do what any good mom does. I step in.

M: That’s great! What position does he play?

Friend: Uhm, (insert silent DUH, here) Third Base. Just like always.

I was trying to help. I didn’t. But the Friend seems undeterred.

Friend: (Ignoring lame mom and with great excitement says,) “Coulter! Did you see the NBA draft?”

Coulter: “Oh, man! I so wanted to see it, but we were out of town. Who won?”

Mom: (silently of course, this is painful). I’m sorry son for never turning on ESPN; for choosing instead Dancing with the Stars.

What? They’re athletes.

Friend: (Totally confused) What? It’s not a game! Nobody won.

He continues. Explaining. Trying. Doesn’t anyone understand how great this is?

Emma Claire has had enough. She is bored.

“Friend! Friend! Friend!”

Friend: “WHAT, Emma Claire?” (He has his own little sister. He is not amused by her charm).
Emma Claire: “Did you know that some animals suck your blood? Really, they do. I read it in a book.”

And that was it.

All is grace. And this day, it was baseball players and who won the draft “game” and animals sucking blood and a son who was pretending and trying and hanging in there as best as he could. That’s what we do. We hang in there as best as we can. And we fail, but it’s o.k.

And that was my grace. That was how God chose to bring me out of myself; out of my thoughts, wandering and lost in a swirling, confusing sea of what was real; was anything real? Was I ever “the one”? Was it, and oh my gosh, this is so cliché, but was it ever love? Was it real?

I don’t know.

But being a mom? This is real. Shuffling children to the pool and the park; to camp and to swim team and now back home because we forgot our goggles and next to Scheels because we lost our goggles. This is real. Adding ketchup when there’s too little and scraping it off when there’s too much. Cutting crusts off of white bread for one child and using a round cookie cutter on wheat bread for the other. Inching into the freezing water so little feet can swim and onto scary, nausea-inducing roller coasters so big boys can ride and yes, this is being a mom. This is real.

This is grace. This is "who won the draft, blood-sucking animals" grace.

Because at the end of the day? The end of grown-up stuff? Marriage and  divorce?

Because at the end of the day (and wee early in the morning) they call me Mom.

And that I know, is real life.