Game Day (A March Madness Post)

When I was fifteen years old, I wanted a gold charm with the number 21 on it. I mean, I wore number 21 on my jersey, on several t-shirts and shorts, and it seemed like the thing to do at the time to buy it in gold and wear it around my neck every day. This was before Amazon had everything your little heart desired and could deliver it to your door step in two days. We had to physically take ourselves to the store and look with our own eyes, in person, to find things. My mom took me to the mall, and I searched far and wide for a number 21 charm. To my shock and dismay, I could not find one.

I decided to get a charm in the shape of a basketball instead. It became my game day necklace, although over the years I also wore it often when we did not have a game. While it was not my first choice, I grew to love that necklace. When my basketball games were over, I started wearing it less. It spent several years in a drawer in my bedroom as I went to college, got married, and spent my days and nights thinking more about diapers and bath time than sports.

And then one day, in the blink of an eye, those babies in diapers became big kids signing up for basketball. Once again I was shopping for basketball shoes and knee pads and when they started having game days of their own, that golden basketball charm flickered somewhere in the back of my mind and I pulled it from the back of the drawer, slid it onto my favorite gold chain, and I started wearing it again.

At fifteen years old, it is easy to think about number 21 first. But looking back on things, I am glad I could not find my number. When I consider my most treasured memories from basketball, they do not have that much to do with number 21. My best memories have more to do with numbers 15, 20, and 50.

They have to do with numbers 10, 12, 14, 23, 24, 34, and 44. And they have an awful lot to do with the guy yelling on the sidelines who didn't wear a number at all.

I never considered that fifteen years later I would be wearing my game day necklace on the sidelines. Sometimes I am coaching and sometimes I am in the bleachers. I still really have no reason to wear the number 21 around my neck, but I wear my basketball charm as new memories are being made, and I celebrate game days. Not because I celebrate a game where you toss a ball through a hoop and try to keep the other team from doing the same. At this phase in my life, I feel like game days are not really about the game to be played. I think game days are more about every moment spent in preparation. Every trip to the store, every practice, every evening spent outside shooting in the back yard under the pole light, and every lecture passed down from parents to children. Every game of one-on-one with your brother (without a referee, mind you), and every team night spent watching Hoosiers.

Oh, I love to win. I love it when my kids do, too. I cheer and take pictures at every opportunity with every single trophy. I file away things I see that my kids need to work on before next time and I analyze each quarter in my mind on the way home in the car. Hindsight is 20/20, after all. But what I hope for even more than a win (I think;) is that my kids love to play as much as I love to watch them. That they will continue to root for each other. That they love their teammates and coaches, and that they learn to focus on the group as a whole more than the number on their own jersey.

Megan's 6th Birthday

My baby is six years old. She is one step closer to being as big as she feels. For her birthday we had a party in her classroom, where I took cupcakes and treat bags for her to pass out to all of her friends.

To continue with the celebration, she also had her first sleepover outside of family. Jaron felt a lot more outnumbered with yet another girl in the house. The girls watched movies, played dress up, and talked and giggled nonstop during every waking moment. 

 We took the kids out to eat Mexican food and they embarrassed her a little bit there as they sang to her and placed the sombrero on her head. 

She went home with Grandma Judy after school on the day of her birthday, and they partied so hard that she fell asleep on her couch before 7:00. Megan quickly learned that being six is actually exhausting. When I went to pick her up after Jaron's basketball practice, she looked like this:

Right now, she loves anything from the Frozen movie. She loves to sing and being in charge. Megan wins the medal in our house for the most emotional child. Hands down. Wherever she goes and whatever she does, she seems to be ALL IN. She continues to be her brother and sister's biggest fan, to the point that she tends to clap and cheer when her brother makes a basket...even if it is during warm ups. She loves school and complains that holiday breaks are too long because she just wants to learn! She is a worker bee whether helping Mom and Dad or doing crafts. I hope she continues to embrace her energetic personality and approach all areas of her life with gusto. Someday, when she really is as big as she feels, she could do great things.